Just a thought – counterfeit leads to counterfeit including another Jesus all together…just a thought there to consider. Im with Jules on this one not that it makes a whole lot of dif.

Bless you all xx

OK?

But I do disagree, love. Maybe if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes. Maybe. I don’t know.

Telling me that Lakeland’s occult/wrong/false/whatever is sort of like telling me that I’m not healed of EDS. Got told one day that I should still be using my wheelchair because I’m not healed. Yeah. OK.

From the first time I read a post online about the revival and started watching on television, and through our trips to Lakeland, Concord, Charlotte…

I’ve prayed more, studied the Word more (in fact I’d gotten bogged down in my Bible reading and stepped it up to finish reading the whole Bible straight through in about 6 months. Now I’m doing it again but taking it a bit slower, digging more, and reading chronologically). I’ve had assumptions challenged. I’ve had to hang on to Jesus because it’s been a wild ride. I’ve had prayers answered in ways I never anticipated. I’ve drawn much closer to the Lord than ever. And I’ve seen it all unfold with my own eyes.

It looks like I’ll be back in Lakeland next weekend – we’re buying a replacement car for Kayt and I’ll be driving down and flying back. Guess what I’m going to do while I’m there? You got it – I’ll be visiting Ignited.

I’m really not seeing facile attempts at justification, Jules. If you read over my posts here over the past year or so you’ll see a whole lot that’s drawn directly from the book of Acts. Somewhere there’s a post on here titled, “I want it all” or something like that, where I went through the Word and pulled out references to a pretty wide assortment of supernatural phenomena. There’s no reason why we’re not seeing the dead raised, the lame walk, and mass salvations other than the church (self included) hasn’t fully stepped up to the plate.

I’m not sure how it can be considered “cancerous” to see people healed, raised from the dead, God glorified, huge and massive focus on the gospel, people sent out to do missionary work – even in their own back yards – all in the power that God promised we’d have in Him… I just don’t see it, Jules.

Consider this, about Lakeland – every single night of that revival, repetitively, to the point where if you didn’t care about God’s glory you’d be awfully sick of it — God got the glory. He was worshiped, praised, and glorified. Does that sound like an orchestration of the devil to you?

I know, you’ll likely argue that counterfeits are possible. And yes – it’s possible for something to look awfully good but be awfully evil. Witchcraft’s like that – deceptively beautiful. It doesn’t glorify God. A variety of cults and false religions are like that – but they don’t glorify God either. Something that’s a satanic counterfeit isn’t going to lead people into a closer walk with Jesus.

And yet here we are. Everyone that I know personally (quite a few) and have met online who were active participants in the revival were blessed and are now closer to God than ever. Most of us were already madly in love with Jesus – but now even more so.

Was the devil against the revival from the beginning? Of course. Could he have invented some stuff that some folks fell for? I suppose. Those would be the folks who put Todd on a pedestal. They should be thanking God for destroying their idolatrous nature.

I’m afraid I’m rambling at this point, and probably pretty repetitive, so I’ll shut up and get started on dinner (Jerk chicken, festival, and callaloo – whoohooo!)

I covet your prayers, Jules. Pray that God’s will be done in our lives. Pray for Him to mold us and shape us and use us. Pray strength and encouragement and life for us. Pray for the manifest glory of God to shine in us no matter where He takes us or what we encounter. Pray that we grow even closer to Jesus, more in love with Him, more in awe of His majesty, and we become more and more like Him every day.

I love you, sister.

And I hope you’re right Kathi.

But still it is given the appearance that those defending him, and giving every reason they can come up with for his sin, that they themselves, though showing themselves to be very strong Christians, put him on a pedestal. Why else would the focus be on ‘who’s to blame other than TB?’ It seems they can’t come to grips that this whole thing was his fault alone. He alone knew what was going on in his life. He made the decision to be on that stage speaking lies, which is what it all was when it comes down to it, as his heart was not right. He wasn’t living what he preached. He alone knew all this, and yet he continued.

>>If people – new believers, old believers, the press, anyone – put Todd Bentley on a pedestal and was “hurt” by his fall – perhaps that’s not a bad thing.

This is the problem with WOF churches/revivals, people are swept up in the emotions. The focus is on feelings and not scripture. An older Christian can live on feelings for only so long, a newer Christian doesn’t stand a chance, and the one who doesn’t know and walks in for the first time is more than likely to run for the door within the first 10 minutes.

When emotion runs high, to the extreme, as it does in a WOF revival, well human beings tend to ‘look up to’ whoever it is that for the most part is distributing the ‘energy’ that floods the room. This is human nature. And when this person falls – especially when it looks as though his life was a lie, people are affected, in one way or another. I don’t care who you are.

Yes, God can fix some of the broken, but I still believe that there are those out there that will never come back – never be fixed. It happens – you and I both know that.

Donna – trying to get caught up on comments this morning (no church, still likely to be contagious. )

What I’m about to say might sound harsh, and I’m not sure how to dress it up and make it sound pretty.

If people – new believers, old believers, the press, anyone – put Todd Bentley on a pedestal and was “hurt” by his fall – perhaps that’s not a bad thing.

Would it have been better for God to allow them to continue in idolatry and delusion?

I won’t go so far as to say that God caused Todd to sin (that would be heresy) but I can sure see His hand in the timing and that He will work even this out for good.

I’m not an immature tickly-eared Christian. I’ve got plenty of discernment. The only satanic roots I’ve seen in the “phenomenon” of Lakeland are the heresy hunters.

I came out of the occult too – and yet you and I are at different ends of the spectrum on this.

Astonishing. I blame Todd and his ‘mentors’ for unbiblical doctrines and aberrant practices, and I blame immature tickly-eared Christians for buying into Lakelanditis instead of exercising spiritual discernment and recognising the Satanic roots of the phenomenon (and yes I use that word advisedly and deliberately, having come out of the occult myself).

Is it TB’s fault that people put him on a pedestal? Is it anyone’s fault but their own to make someone their idol?

God will pick up the pieces. In the end it is God alone who knows a person’s heart (meaning the people whose faith is destroyed). We don’t give God enough credit To use this thing for good.

I credit the heresy hunters for causing much more confusion than the whole entire Todd Bentley fiasco.

By their own faith the people are healed by God alone. It never was Todd. He is not extremely relevant in what God is doing at this moment.

And from my current experience, God can and will restore faith to the person who loses it.

Be Blessed,
Kelly