How about we just *believe* the Bible?

Hey
I had a safe and smooth trip to North Carolina a couple of days ago and have pretty much settled into the same apartment at Summerwalk that I was living last fall when I graduated at FIRE.

One thing I already appreciate since being back is how everybody here actually believes the Bible. I don’t have people dump their opinions on me about how God doesn’t really heal people or that He didn’t really create the world in six literal days (things the Bible *says* He does or did).
Last night at Morning Star School of the Spirit and the night before at one of our Thursday Night FIRE services both of the messages pertained to having faith and just believing the Word, which I had been chewing on a lot lately. I may have already been reading and meditating a lot on this topic and these themes lately, but it was still fresh to hear it, and it sure cemented some of the thinking I’d been doing lately.
On Thursday night for example, Mr. Alt said he was debating calling his message “How about we just BELIEVE the Bible” and much to a lot of chuckling at the idea of that title, it is sooooo needed in the Body of Christ these days. How many people have have started arguments with me lately over my mom’s healing because it doesn’t fit *their* “theology” or how many people have given me heck for taking literally what I read in the Word of God and acting on it? When I’m here at FIRE it seems, whatever the Word of God says goes. It’s refreshing to be back.

On a similar note I don’t know what part of last night going to a Morning Star service was more edifying for me–the service itself or the car ride with Josh Lamica on the way there. This guy had been supernaturally healed of a problem he had with his intestine since infancy. My second year at FIRE he shared in our mentoring group how for all his life he didn’t have the proper nerves in his intestine due to some botched up surgery on it to correct something else, so he would need to excuse himself in the day and check and see if he had ‘messed himself’ since this caused him not to know when his bowel was functioning properly. So having no nerves left him clueless as to if he went or not, and he would habitually change himself up until adulthood–or enrollment at FIRE– where his roomate prayed for him for five days and he got healed and could “feel” it like everyone else and function properly in that regard. Isn’t that amazing!! Plus, I remember his roomate Nicolas being born without a sense of smell, and one morning after an intense service at FIRE wakes up smelling things for the first time. I love listening to testimonies like that more than listening to Christians telling me why the Bible for some reason doesn’t really mean what it says, or tell me these things don’t happen today since the apostles died or some erroneous teachings like that.

Anyway, Josh and I drove the half hour drive or so to Morning Star together and talked at length about this stuff and it was soooo good. I love listening to it and being around other people who believe what they read in the Bible, act on it, and encourage me to do so as well. In fact even last week I listened to yet another person’s opinion about my mom and how they don’t believe she really had fibromyalgia or something. Yeah, that makes sense–she faked it for 15 years so she could all of a sudden pretend she was healed!

After my discussion with him (Josh) last night, I was reminded how the reason we don’t like to believe in healing is because it puts responsibility on us. We like God to be “sovereign” and “nothing happens unless he says so”. If that is the way He is we might as well not do anything but just sit around and watch TV and drink Kool-Aid and eat popcorn, and not go off into other countries as missionaries. Have you ever noticed God doesn’t seem to be so “sovereign” about evangelism? We don’t just pray and twiddle our thumbs hoping God will save someone, but we actively engage in witnessing or evangelising to get them saved, using our mouths, or inviting people to things that will present a Gospel message to them? But suddenly, when it comes to healing, it’s a different story and we sit back and blame God when someone’s not healed. Interesting double standard that we’ll use in this matter–do one thing (go into the nations and make disciples of all nations), but not the other (lay hands on the sick and they will recover). I am no longer amuzed by the little double standards like that that I notice in the Body of Christ when really it’s not “interpretation” or opinions of Scripture, but it’s doubt and unbelief that keeps many from receiving miracles or healings or provision supernaturally. How about we just believe the Bible, and do it? No more “God is sovereign”–which He is, but not the way we think and don’t do anything because “what will happen will happen”.

Anyway, I think I’ve gotten some things out of my system in this post.
I will write something later in the week depending on what’s going or what’s on my mind.

Blessings,
Steve

How badly do we want it?

What cost are you willing to pay for revival? Is there such a thing as a cost? Do we really want it, or would it just be nice if we had one? Is there anything you or I are doing that is hindering God from breaking out all across this place? Do we really want the Holy Spirit poured out, even if it means as Christians we will start liking things of this world less–or do we really want to let go of that which isn’t eternal but pleasurable? Will your life really be deprived if you miss that TV show that Jesus isn’t really watching with you anyway? Does your time really need to be spent on the frivolous things that it’s spent on? Or does Jesus really mean it when he says take up your cross and follow me?

The Healing Power of God

Greetings.
I just thought I’d let everybody that reads this know of a powerful healing testimony if you aren’t already on my e-mailing list and got the e-mail about it–which the most part of this post is cut and pasted from.

I’m not sure where to begin, but I want to be concise and brief as possible, but not leave out the cool details.

Billy Burke, a minister from Tampa FL has been coming up to Peterborough every so often with a church just outside of town called the Selwyn Outreach Centre. This summer they’ve been holding a series of Friday night meetings and Saturday morning teaching seminars once a month for three consecutive months. Well, I persuaded my mom, a pharmacist who works in several different nursing homes, to come to this meeting. She has had fibromyalgia for as long as I can remember, and couldn’t really do much, always needed to be sitting or lying down, was always in pain. The moment the worship started (very UPBEAT worship compared to what she’s used to at our Brethren home church) I noticed she was very into it, and raising her hands and everything. I knew something was up with her enthusiasm because I’d never seen her this way but I certainly didn’t know how much until at the end of the meeting.

Billy Burke preached, and shared a lot of testimonies to boost faith, and then started calling people out of the audience with their problems. We watched a blind woman be led onto the stage and he kept praying for her several times until she finally was telling him how many fingers he was holding up. People were removing their hearing aids, plugging their other ear and repeating what he whispered to them. One woman unplugged her oxygen tank after prayer and through the whole night never put it back in and could breathe and walk (she also had a knee injury or something) just fine and was totally free from a lung condition she had prior to attending the service. It was powerful.

So my mom turns to me after all this and says “can I go up to the front [to get prayer as well]?” and I said sure, then she asked if I’d go with her. So we go to the front, and at least 45 minutes go by that he’s praying for people, some are falling under the power of God and we have to step aside to not trip on them, others are running to prove they really can walk again now, etc…it was powerful. So finally instead of praying individually at length, he says he’ll just lay hands on people now cuz it was already getting late and there were lots of people in the altar area. When he laid hands on my mom I thought she was going to pass out, and that woulda been funny to me cuz she’s normally very conservative and unemotional in church (we go to a brethren one, remember?) So she doesn’t fall down, but later told me she was so “woozy” she needed to sit, but it was “woozy in a good way she never felt before”. We sit down and begin filling out a “testimony card” about it and she tells this usher that she knew she was healed the instant she walked in the building, because she’s normally in so much pain she can’t lift her arms up —see I told you I thought something was up when she was worshipping so passionately during the praise time! So she said she knew God touched her and she was completely healed.
Well here’s another kicker. We decided to go to where Fred and Bonna are sitting and say hi, but specifically tell them about my mom’s healing. She tells them something she neglected to tell me: that on that day that her pain killers had run out and she *purposely* didn’t renew them cuz she knew God wanted to heal her and would that night. Man, I never told her to not get her pain killers!! In fact, I don’t think I really knew she took any for it.

So praise God – those of you that have met my parents know how they behave and carry themselves, but last night my mom was totally different, and definitely a lot more excited about being a child of the King than I’ve ever seen her. You really might not recognize her, she was totally different! Also apparently her view of God was that if you had something wrong with you (like a disease) it’s wrong and impolite to ask Him to remove it, because she erroneously believed God puts sickness and burdens on people (that stupid and totally out of context “thorn in Paul’s flesh” false teaching out there) but then one time in a conversation that I honestly can’t remember having with her, I said to her “show me in the Bible where God makes people ill” and that settled it for her and she agreed to come to the meeting. So praise God with me, and believe for more stuff like that cuz God DOES heal today and doesn’t pick or choose when and who but is ALWAYS willing! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!

Since that service, for the last month, she has not taken a single pain killer medication, she has walked all sorts of places, and my roomate asked me when she came by to get me for something once if my mom has lost weight. One time to make sure her symptoms aren’t coming back, if she has had any pain in her body, and she told me “ya, only the blisters all over my feet from doing so much walking!” HAHA. Praise God!

Let me include a funny detail to underscore her following Jesus now. On that next Sunday morning, at our brethren homechurch she got up during a sharing time in the service and testified that she went to a healing service at Selwyn Outreach Centre and got healed of fibromyialgia. Then on our way home that afternoon, she wanted me to go get her a Message Bible cuz she couldn’t understand even the NIV, and saw my Message Bible once when I was still living with my her and my dad. So I kept telling her where the Christian bookstore was for her to go get one herself. She insisted, ‘no YOU go get it and I’ll reimburse you’, and I just couldn’t persuade her it seemed to go get one for herself. So, the next day, not 24 hours after the discussion, I go there to get her one. I talked to the owner of Emmaus Family Books to order one because they are out, and he takes a good look at me and comes out and asks “what is your mom’s name?” And I tell him “Barb Bremner”, and he says “I’m pretty certain she was just in here not 20 minutes ago and bought our last one”. I told him there’s no way cuz my mom was too nervous to go in herself. And he insisted he was positive my mom was just in the store. So I ask him if she testified to being healed of fibromyialgia, and Jim tells me “yep”, and I just said with excitement “that’s my mom then!” So almost in a weekend she has changed drastically, is reading her Bible, and telling all her co-workers about her healing. In fact, our church paid for a local laundromat for a day so people affected by a major flood in our city weeks ago ($85 million dollars in damage happened to my city, Peterborough in such a heavy downpour that sewers backed up and peoples’ basements flooded with water and sewage, lots of people losing their washers and dryers, and hence needing to go to the laundromat). So my mom went around door to door on her own without a partner, and handed out flyers to a low income housing area near our house to let them know our church would pay for their laundry to be done one day later in the week. I asked her how many people she told of her healing, and she just says “everyone I talked to” LOL!!!!
Anyway, life is different with my mom and she definitely is no longer lukewarm or compromised.
So, I just put that on here to encourage all ya’ all.

Talk to you later,
Steve

Hey, I jumped on the bandwagon and started a blog

Hey everybody, I don’t really have anything to write right now, but this blog will probably serve the purpose of keeping people in touch about what I’m doing in Holland–which isn’t until February. But maybe in the meantime I’ll use this as a journal leading up to it. I don’t intend on writing very personal things, I am not the diary type of person, but I noticed how hard it can be to keep in touch via e-mail with large amounts of people, and newsletters can only be so short or people won’t read the whole thing. So here is my blog.



Ciao



Steve

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Adresses

Anyone reading this in the U.S.A. wanting to make a tax deductible donation can write check to FIRE Missions department, P.O. Box 187Harrisburg, NC 28075. with my name (Steve Bremner) on it in some way so they know it goes to me.

In Canada: King’s Kids International, 2686 Lakefield Road, R.R.#4Peterborough, Ontario, K9J 6X5 with my name on it so they know to put it towards me.

If you attend Auburn Bible Chapel, the deacons will designate any funds requested to go towards me into a fund for my savings towards this cause.

Peter with his head shaved