Last night my team went to Hillsong’s church here in Cape Town. It had been a LONG time since any of us had been to a church service conducted in English. It had been even longer since we had been to a church service where nothing was expected of us. It felt amazing walking in the doors of the church and being able to just relax and enjoy what was going to go down.
As expected, the worship was amazing. Some people may think that Hillsong puts too much focus on worship, but my mind was drawn to Psalm 100 during the service when those thoughts came to my mind. “Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.” Worship is the key to drawing closer to God, so I don’t think there could ever be too much focus on worship. It felt so good just to worship with a connected body and actually be able to understand what was being said in the songs.
The title of the service was called “Living in Freedom”. Sounds like something a team of World Racers would put on. The service was about people who were struggling with substance abuse and other addictions in their life. They had a couple testimonies of people who had struggled for 10 or more years with substance abuse. Due to the program that Hillsong started these guys had been liberated and were now doing great things for the Kingdom. It was a really good experience being in there and seeing God’s victory in these situations, and to see what He is doing through that congregation.
One moment in the service sticks out more than any other though. Towards the end of the service, the pastor gave an altar call to anyone who wanted to give their life to the Lord and be set free from the addictions that they had been struggling with. During the prayer, the pastor said hands were going up all over the place. I usually don’t look around during these moments in order to respect people’s privacy, but tonight I felt like I was supposed to just peek for a second. I squinted my eyes open just enough to see the guy in front of me raising his hand in order to declare that he wanted Jesus to be the Lord of his life. After the prayer was over, the pastor asked for those who had raised their hand to take a step of faith and step forward and come to the front to be prayed over and given a Bible. When he did this, many people came forward. This was an awesome time to see so many people giving their lives to the Lord. One thing was wrong though. The man in front of me wasn’t stepping out. I just prayed that the Lord would increase his faith, and the verse Mark 8:38 came to my mind, “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” I just prayed that he wouldn’t be ashamed of his new Father. At about that time I saw him breath a deep breath, look around, and then step out!!! At this point, the Spirit inside of me was rejoicing like crazy! At that very moment, the lies of Satan were defeated. This man was now covered in the blood of Jesus. In front of his friends, family, and his daughter, this man was proclaiming that he was now a son of God, and that he wasn’t listening to the enemy any longer. God gave me a vision for this man and told me that if I ran into him after the service that I had to give it to him. I didn’t think the odds of that were very likely since there were about 1000 or so people there last night. Well, after hanging out in the lobby for about 5-10 minutes, one of my teammates nearly ran into man, and then he started to greet us. Yep, it was the man that I had the vision for. After introducing himself to my teammate, he shook my hand and just gave me a formal greeting. I then proceeded to ask him if he had gone forward in the service. He said yes. I said, “Well I have a vision for you.” He was somewhat confused but was eager to listen to what I had to say to him. I told him what the Lord had given to me, and I could tell that it definitely connected with him and lifted him up. Thank you God for affirmation. Afterwards, I saw him just hanging around in the lobby with a dazed look on his face. Probably a little overwhelming night for him. It’s always good to be overwhelmed by the Lord.
It was so good to feel God’s victory again and be able to share what He is saying to His believers. It had been a while since I had experienced the victory of the Spirit like that. I almost forgot what it felt like. Thank you God for awesome reminders that you are still at work and your Spirit claims the victory!!
