Surrender- From Itunes Miracle to Salvation!

There was going to be a mad nasty cookoff! USA vs. India. After all the festivities I had a moment to talk with John Longshore and Austin Alvarez. After some fun discussion on callings, people, and life, John passed on some tunage for my desperate ears. He hit me up with some Kim Walker and Misty Edwards. I took my new found treasures home with great promise that my life would be changed. I popped my CD in to load on to my laptop and its starts saving until it gets to track number 7. The computer totally freaks out and does all but slap me and call me stupid. i attempted to load the CD several times and that song would not for the love of anything pure and holy load. I stopped, sighed, and noted the title of the song. "I Surrender". At the time i did not think anything of it. I told John that it wasn't working and kind of in jest said that Something must not want me to hear that song. Then I really stopped and thought about it. What if something really did not want me to hear that song. I tried to load it again and to no avail. With a heavy sight i removed the CD from the computer and all of the sudden the song pops up and begins to play. Did I not just remove the CD? Had I not just tried to load the CD umpteen-bazillion times. Well I guess God saw that it was a song that I needed to hear and He made it happen. Like honest to blog, HE totally made it play. So yes God works miracles through Itunes. I am sure you are thinking woohoo a song played, alert the pope. Well the story continues and gets soooo much cooler.

On the way to work I am listening to this miracle song. As I listen to the song speak of surrender, I stop and ponder if my fourth grade class knows what it means to surrender (I teach at a Christian school). I went on to school but the question lingered heavily fluttering around my heart. I then decided to scrap all of the afternoon lesson plans and talk about what it means to surrender. I took the students out one by one and video taped their response to the questions "What does it mean to surrender?" and "What does it mean to surrender to God?" After we finished filming, we talked for a while about what it means to surrender and what are things in our life that can be surrendered. We looked at the lyrics to the "miracle song". I then had the students write down something that they thought that they should surrender to God. As they were writing I called the students out and filmed them sharing something that they needed to surrender. One little boy came out and I posed that question to him. His response was that he needed to surrender his whole life. After I turned off the camera he told me that He did not think he really had a relationship with Jesus. Then and there he prayed to receive Christ. It was an amazing day. The Spirit was swirling around my class moving and whispering to my students hearts. So yes, amazingly so, God does use Itunes for miracles.

I love you all!

PEACE!

-Nichole Johnson

Beautiful Boldness Part 2

I am a junior nursing major at Clemson, and I have 53 people in my class with me (all the other 1st semester junior nurses). The Lord has been continually showing me recently how much He loves my class and how much He is working in their hearts. So I had been praying for all my classmates for awhile, and eventually the Lord really laid it on my heart to speak to my classmates and tell them about His love. Specifically on a Wednesday night (at transition… yeah good stuff) the Lord told me to speak to my class the next morning. So my 8:15am class I went up to the front of the room and asked my professor if I could make an announcement. She said that it was fine with her so I faced my class and waited for them to be quiet. When everyone was facing me and listening I told them all that the Lord had told me to tell them that He loves them all so much, and that He is coming for them; that they are his daughters and his son (I only have one guy in my class) and that He wants to claim their hearts! I told them that they shouldn’t let anything come between them and the Lord; I told them to enjoy His love and be blessed by it. Then I sat down. Multiple conversations have occurred after this. The Lord is continuing to impress Himself upon their souls, and it is super fun to see how much He is chasing them down!

Later that same day, I was leaving FCA and had gotten in my car to drive back to my apt, and as I was driving by downtown, my heart was breaking for all the students crowded into bars just trying to find some satisfaction in life. I was so broken for how much they need the Lord, and I kept thinking about how good it would be if someone would go to them and speak the Gospel. So then the Lord told me to do that…. No lie; I was like, “say what now? Lord, girls like me don’t just walk into bars and start talking about You.” But the Lord just really laid it on my heart that I was a conqueror through Him and that He wanted these people to hear about his love. So after Jesus talked me through this, I ended up parking my car and walking up to the first bar I saw on the corner of downtown (Griffins? I think that’s the name) and there was a guy singing and playing guitar at the front of the bar, so I waited for him to finish his song and then completely by God’s grace, I walked up to him and asked if I could borrow his microphone. He asked me why and I told him that God had told me to make an announcement. He was a Christian and after asking if I would be brief, he just handed me the mike. I faced the bar and told everyone that the Lord told me to come and tell them how much He loves them. I told them that it didn’t matter how they felt about the Lord, even if they hated Him, that He was so in love with them and that He was coming to claim their hearts. Then I gave the mike back to the singer and walked out.

The Lord is good. He is a God of love, and He wants people to know it, so get ready. He’s gonna be using his children to tell people. New boldness is coming down from heaven.

-Anna Copeland

Beautiful Boldness

So Tuesday, October 14, I didn't go to class the entire day. I didn't have this bad conviction about skipping because I had this feeling that God wanted to tell me something. I was able to just use that time to play my guitar in my room, enjoying sitting with the Father. I was able to learn that He wanted me to go speak the gospel in front of my psych 309 class that meets at 9:05 on mwf and he wanted me to do it the following Wednesday (a week and a day after He told me).

So Wednesday rolls around and my teacher finally gets there at 9:04. It takes me a little bit to get the courage, but I finally get up and ask him if I can say something before class starts. He asks me if it can wait until after class, so I agreed. (waiting until the end of class was a blessing because God got me from "oh my goodness I have to do this" to "this has to be done") So finally at the end of class I get up and I'm pretty sure I say this: "Yall I just need to tell you that God loves yall so much and Jesus Christ died on the cross so that you wouldn't have to go to Hell and my prayer for yall is that you receive that gift of salvation." Once I was done I all but ran out of Brackett (if there's someone reading this that doesn't go to Clemson it's one of our academic buildings), and as I was busting through the doors to get out of the classroom I heard the professor say "I apologize I had no idea that's what was going to be said." From that point on I was consumed with fear. Later that night I learned that it was the enemy trying to tell me that I had done wrong by running out, and in that moment I realized satan has no power over me because the Father has given power and authority over him to us. Praise the Lord for the peace He and only He can give.

-Charron Conley

The Beginning

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:9-10

The Lord's Prayer. Simple. The Father's will for heaven is the same will He has for this earth, a will that is perfect and blameless. The cool thing? He has given us the Holy Spirit (John 14) so that we can be His ambassadors in taking His will to others. He wants us.

For years people have been praying for this atmosphere of Jesus' bold love to come, and He, as always, has proven faithful. We merely have to be good stewards of this atmosphere and usher it into the norm, into the true reality of what His kingdom on earth can look like.

The following stories are ones of healing, salvation, and boldness, all meant to encourage the body of Christ and to point all praise to Him who is deserving. If you have a testimony you would like to give, please share it with us in a comment and we will put it up!  Testimonies will be added shortly I promise, and once they are, please send this link to people you know will be impacted.  

Christ's Peace and Love to you!

-John Longshore