I am loving this book so much! It’s feeding my spirit as a feast. Written by my lifelong pastor and psalmist Jerry Zirkle just before he departed earlier this year. I spoke to him via FaceTime from his bed of affliction the last week of his earthly life.
What a great joy! Even in dying he was so full of the word of God. He told me of this book and what a battle he faced in publishing it, because of the demonic opposition.
DULLNESS
There is such a spiritual dullness in the Church today. People get lazy and don’t avail themselves to reading and meditation to absorb the living Word. Too much theology and not enough spiritology. So few leaders have no private life and dialogue with God, and even fewer know how to structure a service or a meeting from beginning to end in the Holy Ghost. One of my spiritual fathers, the late Kenneth E. Hagin, would say that most pastors wouldn’t recognize the Holy Ghost if He walked in with a red suit, red hat, and red shoes on. It’s sad but it’s true.
For too long many have had the wrong kind of training and example that naturally most people follow. So what you have is a soulish imitation of the false and learned behaviors from the flesh. Someone recently asked an old time Pentecostal preacher what we are missing in the 21st century move of God.He responded by saying: “The Church spends little to no time in its worship services singing in other tongues.”
It’s been like pulling teeth trying to get that great truth over to Christians and even churches. The supernatural language of tongues is a doorway to all the manifestations of the Spirit. God’s purpose is the edification of His people. When we develop people spiritually first, the overflow of the move of the Spirit affects and refreshes your spirit as well as the mind and the body.
MUSIC AND MIRACLES
If you want to see miracles, signs, and wonders, you must sing out of your spirit, not of your soul (mind, will, and emotions). Most music today, including congregational worship, ministers out of the soul to people. Soulish worship brings attention to man and how people feel and their emotions. On the other hand, worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24) should minister to the Lord. Much of today’s music ministers to people, not God.
Learning what our worship songs mean and singing the Word of God empowers us to worship the Lord at a higher level. Knowing what we are singing is crucial to higher worship. Examine your music and your songs. I’ve tried to turn some believers on to Scripture music and songs, and they get bored quickly because their emotions are not as involved at first. They are dull in the Spirit. They want a certain beat and words that stir their soul and emotions. “Oh, I don’t like that country music,” or “that’s just not my type of music,” but they miss the anointing in it.
In most services my wife and I minister in, it normally takes the worship team several songs to get “in the Spirit”. Why? Mainly because most of them don’t have a deep enough private life with God, and they are not properly trained by precept and example how to flow in the Spirit. And so the vocal gifts and true revelation never manifest. Instead there are too many manmade prophecies and emotional gooblygook.
1 CORINTHIANS 14
Why do you think there is an entire chapter (1 Corinthians 14) on how to structure a Holy Ghost believers meeting? I’m convinced this is one big reason why the Lord led us years ago to conduct Holy Ghost Forums, and my wife and I to travel and minister to churches in the Spirit. It’s becoming a lost art and fading in this generation.
Knowing how to direct a service by understanding what is happening in the Spirit is priority to keeping spiritual order in a service. Confusion and chaos in a service happens when there are vocal utterances without direction and spiritual leadership. Paul addresses the soulish disorder in the Corinthian church. True spiritual leadership, discernment, clarity, and understanding are necessary to keep the right order in a service to allow the utterance gifts and revelation to reach its maximum purpose and edification to encourage and strengthen the body.
I have so much more to say about this, but this is enough for now.
Stay tuned…
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