After the High Holidays, I started weekly “Going Deeper” meetings at Tiferet Yeshua where we could go deeper into the Word of God together. God has been blessing our meetings greatly and bringing together a wonderful group of Israeli believers who are hungry to seek more of Him in His Word. At the end of 2021, God put it on my heart to do something special and a little bit different at our weekly “Going Deeper” meeting: I wanted to somehow combine worship with our Bible reading for that week. I had in mind a couple worship leaders who agreed to come and lead worship at the meeting, but a couple days before the meeting they let us know that they could not make it.
A day before the meeting, a couple of young women from Tiferet Yeshua’s worship team happily agreed to come lead worship for our meeting. At that point, I still did not have a clear idea how I was going to combine the Bible study with the worship. The day of our meeting was especially busy: we started early in the morning with preparing the congregation to host a group of holocaust survivors for a special holiday meal, and we were busy serving and then cleaning up until late in the afternoon. Our event with the holocaust survivors was very meaningful and blessed, and we were all touched by what God had done. But little did we know that God was not finished: we still had our special “Going Deeper” meeting just a couple hours away.
That evening, we arranged our chairs in a circle and had the keyboard and our worshippers as a part of the circle. We started by reading through our passage that week and sharing what the Lord put on our hearts about what we read. Then we just started to worship together. At one point, one of our worshippers began singing in the Spirit, and there was suddenly a heavy anointing of God’s presence in the room. I felt let to read Isaiah 61:1-3
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
At that moment the Spirit fell in a surprisingly powerful way: one young man shared a vision he saw of the fire of the Lord burning up unclean spirits. A moment later he was unable to stand and sank to his knees, overcome with waves of joy. At the same time, another man suddenly started going through a dramatic deliverance from spiritual oppression. I am so thankful that Debbi from our leadership team was there with me so that we could each minister to those who were being touched by the Holy Spirit!
We could see that God was touching another man, and Debbi and I started to pray for him: he shared afterward that God showed him several areas of wrong spiritual ideas he had (in his younger years he was heavily involved in a cult led by a powerful guru) and that God then gave Him three powerful words for his life and his family. Flori, a new believer who prayed to receive the Lord a couple months ago during one of our meetings, said she felt that the Lord Yeshua Himself had laid His hands on her head while she was praying and worshipping. Her husband Hilik was also touched in a powerful way. Everyone who was there received some special touched from the Holy Spirit.
I had no idea that this is what God had planned for us! I just wanted to do a worship evening with the Word, but He started moving because our hearts were open and worshipping Him. All of us were astounded at the end of the meeting, and none of us wanted to leave – so strong was the presence of the Spirit! I also feel that somehow our meeting was even more blessed because we had spent the morning serving and blessing holocaust survivors. Even as I write this, I am astounded by God’s goodness to us and how He surprised us with such a beautiful outpouring of His Spirit, and how faithful He is to set captives free. We are hungry for more, and are excited for what else He has in store for us!
Louise Key says:
So blessed to read such. God led me out of our main church that seemed to be simply ‘same old’ and through a vision gave me the key to a local inn/accommodation/sports venue. There was a key in one claw of the dove descending and an oak tree leaf. I knew that he meant it related to Isaiah 61:3 You will be called ‘oaks of righteousness’; a planting of the Lord for the display of His ‘SPLENDOUR’. We meet once a month with no particular agenda but to worship and allow the Holy Spirit to move and encourage, deliver and embrace Hos children. ‘I believe the ministry has been lost to His children as we meet as our agendas have got in the way and it’s been more ‘man’s’ church than Gods. The Homy Spirit has been tired of us actually ‘putting up a man built wall’. Waiting on Him, worshipping Him ‘Together’ and letting Him move is the way forward in this season and there will be a mighty harvest because of it with the stepping out and healing the sick and casting out demons on the streets. The Holy Spirit is leading us and the WONDER is returning. Praise God and bless you abundantly in this season of His surprises and welcomed ‘interruptions’ for our good. O how He loves us.
Blessings
Lou Key – Gods child,
Worship leader/singer songwriter/evangelist.
Gods child
Tiferet Yeshua says:
Dear Lou, thank you for sharing this! We are in a process of learning to foster an atmosphere that is open to and honors the Holy Spirit, even in our main services in which there is an “order of things”. Each week something wonderful happens and we feel ourselves excited to be in God’s presence with our brothers and sisters each week, and it is absolutely Him just pouting out His love on us. May He continue drawing us deeper into His heart, keep us humble, and may we never loose the sense of Wonder, like you say, in His presence. Blessings on all you are doing to seek Him and reach the lost with His love!
Michele Paris says:
Shabbat Shalom
I would feel a very hard presence of the Ruach HaKodesh just reading this!!!
Tiferet Yeshua says:
Praise God!