Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Walks

Andrew Bergen, along with many others throughout the world, find that a nice walk by himself helps to collect thoughts and talk to God. Whether it is 2 in the morning, or in the middle of the day, Andrew finds it fun to walk and pray. It can seem a bit strange that an extravert would gain ground (so to speak) from walking alone, on the contrary however Andrew uses the time walking to speak with God about what has been on his mind as well as getting through lives obstacles.

Over the many years that Andrew has gone for walks with God, it has helped shape him as God has taught him a lot in these times. Andrew grew up with good mentors who passed on a lot of information that helped him in these one on one times. Over the years Andrew heard a lot about men of God who would spend a portion of their day getting away from everyone else and all the business of life, to go and spend one on one time with God to grow closer to him. Andrew took this wisdom to heart and has used the walks to talk with God and get to know him better.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Free People

I have had talks with other men about man’s struggles with the sin of Adultery for many years now, ever since I was a teenager to be exact. Something that I found in all the discussions I have had is that more often than not, men don’t have a lot of hope with victory over this problem. I remember being with my youth group during a cell group night (which is a night where the youth break up into small groups and pray for each other, talk about life, and have fun together) and we talked for over an hour strait listening to married men with children talk about the problems of Lust in their lives and the lives of young men and older men, and not once was there ever any hope of a solution. In fact he ended his talk by asking us, the younger men; so what do you do? One guy piped up and said we should all become monks and live away from woman, but to be honest, woman are not the problem. In fact women have the same problem as men do, in other ways of course but none the less it’s the same stream that we are both drinking from. I want to see and hear people who God has given grace and understanding too, to being to disciple other man and woman into adultery free lives in Christ. Believe me there is so much more I want to say about this right now, but this will have to do for today.

God Bless

-Andrew-

Monday, November 23, 2009

Revival is Coming, Revival is Here Thankyou Jesus

Remember a few blog posts ago I was talking about the Azusa Street revival back in the early 1900’s. One of the items on discussion was the 100 year prophecy that William Seymour spoke of. He talked about that in roughly 100 years there would be another revival even greater than theirs, and so on. Well in the past few year we have seen great moves of God happening in America and Canada, but a recent event developed on the 11th of November where the Holy Spirit flooded a class of 166 students at International House of Prayer University. Since then they have started up meetings that are held for 5 days a week where people are emotionally healed, spiritually restored with love, and physical healings are happening. I spent the majority of Saturday night watching it over a live feed they provide on their website. The next meetings are happening this Wednesday 6:00 Central. Check it out, it is completely amazing what Jesus is doing in our years, and this is only the beginning.

www.ihop.org

God Bless

-Andrew-

Thursday, November 19, 2009

God Experiance

In late august of 2008, a young man by the name of Andrew was led to a Christian camp, where an encounter with God awaited him. Andrew was trying to be accepted into a bible college for further a career in media as he felt led to, however throughout the summer of 2008, Andrew only had a job making a little over $10 an hour painting houses through a student painting company called Student Works Painting. The company was based on piece work, so Andrew would only get paid for every house completed under budget. Towards the end of the summer, Andrew’s boss suddenly disappeared from contact. Both Andrew and his co-worker tried to contact their boss many times throughout the period of a week; however he never responded for days until a text message was received by Andrew from his boss who explained that he had a family emergency in Calgary and had to take off suddenly.

With incredibly perfect timing, Christian Enrichment Family Camp called Andrew and asked him if he would like to be a youth councilor at the camps youth week, he agreed and quit his job, packed his bags and headed off to camp.

That week at camp, Andrew was challenged with many things in his life regarding leadership and Gods work in his life. These were things that Andrew would talk to his friends about, asking and inquiring about what a touch from God is like. But it was on a Wednesday afternoon where both Jeremy Wall who was a councilor along with Andrew were frustrated with the campers and the stress that it was putting them under. That evening all the youth were brought to the meeting place at the camp and a woman named Tasha went to the front and shared her life story and her testimony of salvation. The testimony she shared was relevant to the youth that were there as it had to do with the downtown life of crime and sin. Due to the content of the message, little children were not allowed in the service as the content as too mature for their ears.

This evening was the beginning of the events that changed people’s lives that week at camp. The next evening on Thursday a young teenage girl who was at the camp for a few weeks that summer, shared her testimony as well as shared the gospel with her fellow youth. She shared about how God had shown her three people that were going to receive salvation that evening, but she didn’t say who. After she shared three people came to the front and Andrew went up to pray with those who wanted to receive Christ. As Andrew was praying for one of the youth, he began to laugh harder and harder, to the point when he could no longer stand up, so he fell to the ground laughing for 5 minutes until he stopped. Following his laughter he looked around the room to find his friends, and when he spotted his friend Zach who was also a leader that week, he rolled on the floor towards him. When he arrived at his friend’s feet, Andrew asked Zach to pray for him, however during this time there were several people around the room crying, singing and laughing all at different times in different places in the room. The events of that evening continued until after midnight where many people received something from God and testified to one another the next day.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Angelic Recordings

Lately I have been listening to a song by Jason Upton who is a well known worship leader and song writer from the states, the song I have been listening to is called Fly. The first time I have heard this song was back in 2006 at summer camp when the guest speaker showed it to us because it contained something that not every song recorded contained. What made Fly so special is that it has the first ever recordings of an angel from heaven singing along in the song. In the album cover, Jason talks about the story for those who were curious saying that there was a 12 food angel standing directly behind him when he was singing the song. He himself did not see the angel however, but a young boy in the service who told him after. What made it so powerful was when the man who was with him that evening leading worship told his story, Jason was the only one on stage singing throughout the whole song, but when you listen to it, there are two and three part harmonies throughout the song. When you listen to it you will hear an echo sounding lower voice and some harmonising higher voices at the quieter parts. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo6Nu5W256M

-this link is the testimony by the other worship leader that was working with Jason Upton the night of the recording.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6jRPpHzwCE&feature=related

-this is a shortened 8 min version of the song. The full song is a whopping 12 min long.

God Bless

-Andrew-

Monday, November 16, 2009

Do NOT Worry

In all aspects I have every reason to panic and freak out right now, but I choose not to. The reason I choose not to be is because I look in scripture and see that Jesus never panicked as well as told his disciples and all people not to worry. So the question stands, why are we not supposed to panic? Well to be honest I’m still learning why, but from what I have learned so far, it is that we are built, designed, made to live for Christ, so when we do something that is not in him, then we are not doing something that is of his character. God did not create doubt, fear, anxiety and worry, so being any of those things is really saying we don’t fully trust him.

Something to think about

God Bless

-Andrew-

Friday, November 13, 2009

More Need for More of the King

Last few days I have been longing for God to come down on me and the school that I am at right now. Jesus has been speaking to me to get close to him but it seems I have a hard time to do the simplest of things when God calls me. It’s easy to talk about him and testify, but it’s hard to just... well... do. I want to but when I try it gets hard, however I feel I need to push past and just pressure it with no presumptions and just go for it in worship and see what Jesus has for me and for my school.

That’s what’s been going down.

God Bless

-Andrew-

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Smelling Like the King

I really want to take what’s going to happen at Prov seriously. It’s not to say that I don’t take it seriously, it’s just that I haven’t been as passionate as I could be, only sowing into it at convenient times. I am seeing God work among the guys in my dorm, but I feel that I could be doing more. A thought came to me the other day, and by came to me I mean God gave it to me. A few years ago back when I was in high school I used to have sleepovers at my friends house very often. One thing in noticed is that his house has a distinct smell like all houses do, except that his house had a smell (not a negative odder) much stronger than my house did.

The point of all this is that when I would go home from sleepovers, I found that my pillow and cloths smelt like his house did, very strongly. This is what the Lord was showing me: that I would spend so much of my time with him in his presence that when I would be around other people in public or privet that His smell (metaphorically and naturally) would be one me, like a sign and a wonder that says I have been with the king/

God Bless

-Andrew-

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Its Happening

I am not going to lie; it feels good when God works through you. Lately around school, God has been telling me and a few friends to start doing what his word says and start praying for people, whether it is for healing or to speak God into a situation, anything really. Today was the day that we started to do what his word says with really no idea what would happen. To be honest I was hoping that we would see a miracle, but who knows what God had in mind, we just prayed as a group (the four of us) and waited to see what God showed us. Then we went out and prayed for the people or placed God told us about, we had the chance to pray for 5 or so people and speak into their lives. It was an awesome experience and I can’t wait to do it again.

God Bless

-Andrew-

Monday, November 9, 2009

Worship

What hasn’t happened this past weekend? Well, lots, but this was definitely a significant weekend as our church has been experiencing more and more of the presence of God in the past few months. This last Sunday we experienced a bit of the Love of Christ which sounds typical but it seems that a lot of people don’t even know that God loves them and wants to be close to them. None the less there was so much Love from Christ in the sanctuary that I broke down crying because of the beauty of it all, it made me want to worship God forever and do nothing else. I always had problems with worship mainly because it’s more than just music, but often gets classified as music, i.e. if you sing along with the songs you are worshiping. What I found was myself getting frustrated with worship services rather than enjoying them, so I began to ask God how to worship, and instead of telling me he opened a door so that I could. Now I can say with utmost certainty that I love to worship

God Bless

-Andrew-

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

We Are the Voice in the Desert

I’ve been learning so much about God and who he is and what he does lately. It’s probably the most interesting thing to learn about it, but what about doing it? Lately I decided that I was going to take the word seriously and start to pray for the injured or the sick, and God liked it. Lately I have noticed that on these blogs I have been skimpy on the life giving food that we need, and have talked about stories or… sham-wow. Knowing that God gave me a good sense of humour, I think that I need to start declaring the things that God likes again. The enemy doesn’t care if we read the word, more so he does not want us to be doers of the word. So when you start to notice that everything around you that is worldly is suddenly working against you rather then tolerating you, it’s safe to say that you’re doing something they don’t want you to be doing.

Think about it.

God Bless

-Andrew-

Monday, November 2, 2009

Good Times with Good Friends

This past weekend was very much a refreshing weekend as I was able to go visit my friends from camp. Now I am no stranger to having friends of all ages, some are much younger than me, and others are much older. These friends were a couple of 31 and 32 years of age who have 3 kids and live in a small town in Manitoba, but they are such good people it’s amazing. I met them 2 years ago at a family camp I have been going to for my whole life. There they received salvation from Jesus and their entire lives were transformed and changed as well as their families. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to see God completely transform a family and totally change who they are its truly amazing to see true salvation.

God Bless

-Andrew-