May 2019 - Paul Bennison

By this EVERYONE will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another…..

Posted on May 20, 2019 by Paul Bennison Posted in Journal, Personal, Random Thoughts, Testimony, Travel Leave a comment

When I saw this quote from the lovely Derek Prince recently, I was just going to re-post it on Facebook, but it carries a very powerful message for the church today, so in my own amateurish theological understanding, I felt I wanted to write a post here instead.

For me, the church should be a place of safety, love, care, protection – as well as a place for corporate worship, communion, prayer, and teaching. A place where – out of care and love, the desire and passion to ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel’ comes. I grew up in a ‘hymn-prayer-preach sandwich sort of church, until going to a youth group at another church about 20 miles away in the late 1960’s. My friend Andy and I felt that God was leading us there, well, there were a large number of lovely-looking single girls our age (!!!), whereas where we lived (then – no name mentioned!) it was best described as ‘God’s Waiting room’ or ‘a cemetery with lights’. (I think it’s changed a bit in the last 50 years!).

The Youth Group, led by a wonderful couple – Brian & Penny Hill – opened their home to a large – and growing – number of young people a number of times in the week (think: teenagers/nice home/damage/stuff spilled!), and were almost always available if we needed to talk. I even played squash regularly with Brian. I owe so much of who I am and what I do to Brian and Penny, and people they brought in to teach us, help us, equip us, and send us ‘out’ – like Clive and Ruth Calver, Graham Kendrick, Ishmael, Gerald Coates. I went from being a churchian to a full-blown Holy Spirit filled Christian very quickly. The love, care, and commitment of Brian and Penny – I look back now – and see it was almost legendary, as so many churches are focused on size, reputation, The youth group ‘grew’ into a thriving church – not huge, but then I really prefer small churches, as you can get to know and love people, and get to be known and loved. It was a group in unity, diverse in the people in it but with a tremendous love from and for Brian & Penny which filtered down to us as individuals. If you were hurting, you’d get help: if you were sick, you’d get prayer (I was healed there of a spinal birth defect – a hole in my spine where there shouldn’t have been a hole, resulting in constant life-long (about 20 years at that stage) back-ache. Somehow managed to play rugby through my teens (from 11, actually, to about 21, to a reasonable standard). Through Clive Calver, a man named George Tarleton came to the fellowship, prayed for me, could see my back was out of line, and in seconds it was healed. A visit to the hospital for x-rays/scans showed no hole there. And this was before healing was ‘famous’! I’d already been healed of being celiac. This would have been about 1974, and the big nationwide charismatic renewal happened a couple of years later.

For me, I’d give a great deal and go a long way, to be in an Acts 2:42ff church like that was. For me, the priority of church is to love and be loved, care and be cared for, and to serve. Relationships have always been a major ‘must’ for me, and many of my friendships go back well over 30+ years, some many more years than that. Quite a few of my current friends on Facebook (and yes, we’re in touch, not just a number!) were in that church.

John 17:21-23 – The Passion Translation, says this:
I pray for them all to be joined together as one^[a] even as you and I, Father, are joined together as one. I pray for them to become one with us so that the world will recognize that you sent me. For the very glory you have given to me I have given them so that they will be joined together as one and experience the same unity that we enjoy. You live fully in me and now I live fully in them so that they will experience perfect unity, and the world will be convinced that you have sent me, for they will see that you love each one of them with the same passionate love that you have for me.

God, I pray that Jesus’s prayer will be answered…. Church, in my non-academic understanding of theology, is a place that should first and foremost should be like Acts 2:42ff…. Where people go and are loved, cared for accepted, where ‘devotion to communion and prayer’ were the PRIORITY (if I remember, Jesus said at the last supper ‘do this EVERY time you meet, in memory of me’ so if we don’t do it we’re disobeying his request and relegating him to a place of less importance, right?) – because of the way they ‘did’ church, they saw signs and wonders and were filled with awe…. When anyone had a need it was met by the others, including selling property and possessions to do it – do our properties and possessions possess us rather than we possess them? Is our future security more important than someone else’s need NOW? Or do we trust the God who provides for ALL of our needs to help someone in need today? Because of the way church was then, they had favour with ALL the people and the kingdom grew because they loved each other as more were saved every day…

Jesus said in John 13:35: (NIV) “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

I’m so grateful that my whole life was coloured by Brian & Penny Hill, Clive and Ruth Calver, and Graham Kendrick, in those amazing years around the 70’s. Thank you, all of you – but especially to you, Brian (Penny went to enjoy the great Youth Group with Jesus a few years ago) – for loving us, despite all the frustrations you must have gone through – into a place where Jesus and each other were the central focus of our lives. I know, that 50 years on, Jesus still IS the central focus of my life, and for that, through you, I am eternally grateful.

THE COST OF THE BATTLE – BUT THE BATTLE BELONGS TO THE LORD!!!

Posted on May 19, 2019 by Paul Bennison Posted in Journal, Personal, Random Thoughts, Testimony, Travel Leave a comment

Since what has turned out to be a temporary move to North Kent (the owner of my flat has decided to sell it, and my initial tenancy was only for 6 months anyway), I’m on the road again in another sense! I’m asking God where he wants me to move to (with a degree of urgency in my voice!) – I’ve begun to see the fulfillment of what was prophesied over me last year that there would be an advance and increase in what God does. As always with those things, which is a privilege, honouring, and challenging, comes a backlash from the enemy.

Since being here, I’ve never, in 40 years in serving God, experienced ‘enemy onslaught’ like recent months: from unbelievable pain in my knees: to betrayal: to theft: being on the receiving end of curses from ‘friends’ (do any of you know what being wounded by ‘friendly fire’ feels like?) to loss of possessions: and spiritual attack like I’ve never known. I’m thrilled with what I’ve seen God do, and – this may sound to some of you – the blessing of having someone with me on a ministry trip who said ‘I saw how much it cost you to do what you do physically (as well as spiritually) today’.

I’ve had the privilege of standing with friends in their own spiritual onslaught and seeing them come through it following a similar battle I fought a few decades back. For many years I’ve known about, and done battle with, a particular spirit – Jezebel – and these months have been a constant battle against her. You remember she wanted to destroy Elijah after his amazing miracle and faith on Mount Carmel. You may be among those who think this sort of stuff doesn’t happen today, that it’s all a bit freaky: I want to tell you it’s very real! Friday was a very REAL day I can tell you!

About 15 years ago, in North Dakota, I lived a little in the fulfilment of a dream! I’ve always wanted to go across the United States in a Winnebago or American Eagle motorhome: I was in a 60 feet long American Eagle, incredible vehicle, living my dream if only in the Dakotas! It was fabulous! After an amazing meeting the night before, I woke next morning totally paralysed down my left side. The evening before a young man, William, had been miraculously healed, he was born with his feet splayed at right angles to his legs, and the ‘shame’ of not being able to do sport – especially in the USA – had caused him to have acute eczema. His mum turned out to be a witch, and cursed me for praying and for healing her son – bizarre or what??!! The Pastor I was with, Jim Samuelson, with whom I was on a preaching ‘road trip’ in the Dakotas, took me to the local hospital, where I was xrayed, blood tested, and scanned within a very short time. The doctors said that I’d had a number of TIAs (transient ischemic attacks – mini-strokes): the local pastors prayed for me after I was told I’d be hospitalised for a while, and Jim phoned ahead to a church we were heading for to get them to pray, where they two amazing men of God speaking, Bill Johnson and Bobby Conner, who prayed for me too: two hours later I walked out of the hospital to go and preach that afternoon having not been able to move for about 4 hours after I woke up. It was a wonderful feeling to arrive at the church and have Bill and Bobby lead a verbal and clapped thank you to God for a miracle….

Something very similar happened in Colombia about 5 years ago, after a wonderful day of miracles in a hospital: the Irish and French team I had with me thought I was mucking about when I couldn’t walk straight, was talking gobbledegook (some people think I do that all the time!!), then realised it was serious, prayed for me, and it went……

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend, having gone through a particularly tough series of ‘attacks’, and seen God do some lovely things, when I realised I’d started speaking odd, couldn’t make my mouth work properly one side, heard myself talking about someone cooking me a leg of lamb (!!dream on!!) and could see on my friend’s face utter astonishment… Another TIA had struck – I’m absolutely convinced it was Jezebel-instigated. Being told you look weird by people with you is odd (but don’t I always?) It lasted about 15 minutes, then I ‘heard’ my own spirit speak out loud and with total clarity, commanding Jezebel to get off of me in Jesus’s name, out of my flat/apartment, leave these friends alone, in a totally lucid voice, and she went… It was a weird few minutes to say the least… But we have total authority over such attacks because of Jesus and his victory over evil and the enemy… We don’t realise the authority and power that we ALL have – when Paul wrote of Jesus in Colossians 1:15ff – he said in verse 19 that ‘God was pleased to put all of his fulness into Jesus’ In John 20:21, when Jesus is just about to go back to be with his Father, he said ‘and as the Father sent me, so I send you’…. In John 14:12 Jesus said we’d do what he’d do and GREATER things than He did. Do we REALLY believe these verses? I know that I do, and want to believe them more and more as the years roll on.

I’m so grateful for people who intercede for me, and pray for the things I do. I covet more intercessors! One lovely lady in Scotland, Pamela, messaged me today and said “I draw a line around you that can no longer be invaded by your enemy and enemies. Angels are guarding you and your life can no longer be threatened. I also pray rejection off of you and all effects of the traumas you have been through throughout your entire life. Be healed in this area too. New things are ahead. A new ministry. Not a different one but a newness in your healing ministry. I believe the Lord is going to open your eyes to deeper things that will help you to see into people’s circumstances in a way you haven’t before and this will bring about more healings. More significant healings. Miracles.” Bless you, Pamela… I didn’t have chance to let anyone know while it was happening Friday, but I do know that there are people, in many nations – for which I thank God – who pray for me. THE BATTLE BELONGS TO THE LORD!!!! (And what an amazing song THAT is that we don’t sing anymore!! – bless you for writing it, Jamie Owens-Collins!!).

WHEN GOD MOVES, PREPARE FOR BATTLE!! SOME LOVELY HEALINGS….

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Paul Bennison Posted in Evangelism, Journal, Personal, Testimony, Travel Leave a comment

In recent weeks, since I’ve been more actively involved ‘on the road’ again after last year’s ‘not being able to walk’ problems, it’s been absolutely wonderful to know that – while it seemed that people forgot me last year (apart from a handful, including my lovely not-yet-Christian’ next door neighbours), that God didn’t forget me! I did wonder if, after the best part of a year mostly out of circulation, if I’d be remembered when people wanted someone to speak, or pray for the sick: I’m very grateful that I’ve already had some wonderful opportunities this year, and seen God do some wonderful things. It’s so good to know that the gift and call are irrevocable and that God knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground it isn’t forgotten.

Some of the testimonies from meetings – and people I’ve prayed for in homes – I’ve already told in blogs, but it’s always good to hear that those people are still well, going on with God better than before…. one young man (I won’t mention his name) who’d been having long-term problems with alcoholism, and drug abuse, came and spent some hours in my home, brought here by a very long term friend from 30+ years back…. a local friend who was here, too, just briefly after they’d arrived, had a word of knowledge/encouragement for the young man, started to break down all the walls he’d built around himself to keep God ‘at bay’ – and during the course of a number hours (not intense – on and off in that time!), God set him free…. he desperately needed to pass his driving test (which was the following week) so that he could go back to the country where he was living and working: he wasn’t in the least confident he’d pass. After God had dealt with his history of failures, he passed the driving test with flying colours so much so that the examiner pinned his pass ‘notice’ on the wall to show others what could be done…. He’s doing great back ‘home’ now and has grown in faith, firstly because of the words of encouragement when he arrived, and then by what God did that day and through my friend who’d brought him here….

Had a terrific time in Welshpool, Powys, recently – I have a long-term friendship and life-long bond with one couple there – Jonathan & Kathryn moved there almost 20 years ago, but Kathryn was the driver of their car in which she was taking me to Heathrow in 1994, when we were crushed between two articulated (18 wheelers Americans!) lorries (trucks Americans! – as you know, we’re one nation divided by a common language!). That sort of experience – which should have killed both of us – does tend to forge a bond that is unbreakable!) – I heard another bit of the story that I didn’t know from Kathryn, too! She was first out of the car, being tall and slim: I thought I sort of rose up out of the front windscreen (windshield Americans!) with the big angel’s hands around my arms (they’d obviously been around my arms at some stage as I had massive bruise print finger marks on my biceps) but I guess that was to get me out of the seat belt which was still connected – lap and shoulder straps – Kathryn said I came out of the car really fast, spinning (I pictured it when she told me as like one of those machines they drill tunnels with!) – I had NO idea of that – probably it was just the shock and relief of getting out of the car that filled my mind. She told me about other conversations she had that I wasn’t aware of either! The story gets better and better!!!!

I’d gone to Welshpool to speak at the Filling Station, where God did some lovely healings, including the miraculous release that evening from pain of a man (I haven’t asked his permission to mention his name here) who’d had massive injuries in a car crash and constant pain for many years. I asked him what his pain level was at the start – on a 1-10 scale – and he said 12-15, so that’ll give you some idea. After we chatted and prayed, I asked him what he was feeling (my body is on fire! – which you could see by the sweat on his forehead!) and what was about pain that level now – 1-10 – ‘1’ was his answer, and he could stand up and sit down with no pain which he hadn’t been able to do. Others received either total or partial reduction in pain: other diseases/physical ailments were healed, or the process began…. I love what God wants to do for us, and promised to do – and DOES, through ordinary people like me and you… Went to a few people’s homes the next morning to pray for them – both will only know what’s happened as a result when they return to hospital for tests/check ups/scans….

The journey home was one of rejoicing at having been with such a wonderful bunch of Christians in a little Welsh market town, where their expression of church is very much an Acts 2:44-47 church:

⁴⁴All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

They come together a couple of times a month to meet collectively, and then have ‘The Filling Station’ as an open time of worship, speaking, evangelism, and healing. I love going there, especially because of the ‘car crash’ bond which has made my friendship with Jonathan and Kathryn very precious! Then the long drive back to Northfleet Wednesday afternoon….

…to leave earlyish Saturday morning to go the long drive to Plymouth – so worth the drive to speak at another church I love, City Church – I’ve been going there since the middle ages I think! – but so many of the people there are really great friends, and they bless me so much, and seem to love me a lot! That’s most important to me – to be able to love and bless and be loved and blessed. No startling miracles, but there were people who received relief from pain, someone who’d broken her hand on the Thursday before experienced a big reduction in pain, and the next day (I think) the hospital said that there was no need to for plaster as it was healing well… This story, too, is lovely, about a boy with a number of mental and sociological issues:

Hi Paul. To encourage you. I met Benjamin’s Mum in town today. She said that since you prayed for him there is a big difference in him. Whereas before, if she said something to him he would repeat it back to her but not respond. Now when she says ‘good morning Benjamin ‘ instead of giving a little wave, he says ‘good morning Mummy’. There are other changes as well and she is thrilled and believing God for more. Lots of love Nina

I love it when Good heals instantly, but I love it as much when God begins a process that results in permanent transformation. A couple of Sundays ago, at a wonderful Cafe Church in West London, God released a number of people – many of them desperately poor and some homeless/refugees etc., – of a lot of pain, osteoarthritic knees were eased massively/healed…. a lovely Iranian refugee with chronic knee pain and the other leg ulcerated, received a great amount of release from pain in his arthritic knee – here’s a bit from the email received from a very long-time friend, Godfrey, who runs the cafe church:

I wanted quickly to pass on from Reza, his thanks to both of you, (I had a fantastic faith-filled praying friend with me who’s own healing/word of knowledge gift is such a blessing) and to tell you that the pain in his knee remains very much less ever since you prayed – as he said, one or two out of ten compared to at least five, and it has stayed that way for which he is extremely grateful. He’s hoping to get back to doing some work soon so mobility is very important. The ulcer pain in his other leg is no better, though he said two interesting things. He said that he had wondered on Sunday if this was something that was enabling him to understand how other people feel (as your knees do for you). The other thing is that after we left, and all yesterday, he felt drained of all energy and was falling asleep when some friends came to visit him yesterday – I wondered if you had come across that sometimes as a reaction to healing prayer? I know (as in Elijah after Mt Carmel) that it’s a recognized physical reaction to spiritual activity. (My response to that is yes – it’s sometimes like God gives us an anesthetic in order to carry on working on us – and rest is an important part of allowing the healing to take effect).

Godfrey and I have known each other – we worked out – for almost 40 years, though it’s many years since we were in touch – there’s a wonderfully beneficial side of Facebook despite some of the criticism people level at it! – When I worked for Youth for Christ in East Sussex, a brilliant singing/poetic duo used to come quite regularly to work with us – Shattock and Rust (Geoff and Godfrey). They were great musicians, Godfrey a great poet….so it was a delight to hook up again! A lady called Glenna (I think) received a lot of healing, so much that she came back for more to get another ‘dousing’ from the Holy Spirit to completely heal her…. prayed for so many that evening, it was wonderful, too, that there were so many nations represented there, a few of which some of the people were delighted that I knew and had been to!

God spoke as I was moving over to England that there would be an increase not only in what I do in the year/years ahead, but also in seeing much more of his power in action. It goes with the ‘turf’ that when God moves there’s an enemy reaction, and I don’t think that in all the years I’ve been following God’s call I’ve known attack like it before and after trips, physically, emotionally, and practically. I’d really value your prayers that as the year rolls on, and more opportunities come in to go to other places to minister, for protection – especially physical and practical – when I got back from the Plymouth trip (I’d gone to Welshpool a few days earlier), the enemy ‘hit’ my body with such force I couldn’t get out of the car when I got back home. I sat in the car for a good 10 minutes and even wondered if I’d need to sleep there, as 30+ stairs up to the flat I’m renting seemed a physical impossibility for these suffering knees. In the end, I decided that I had to try, as my bed is more comfortable than the car seat, and it took me 20 minutes to get back up to the flat. I just fell on the bed unable to move. I’ve been ultra-conscious, too, of the assault of a particular spirit – some of you will be aware of the Jezebel spirit – wow, when that spirit attacks you certainly know you’re in a war!

Lots of other changes going on, but rather than extend this blog, I’ll write another one as it’ll be so long you’ll give up reading it, daunted by the length!

I try to take one day at a time. Looking ahead often makes me feel overwhelmed. I can’t look at tomorrow’s challenges with today’s grace. But I remind myself that all the grace I need for tomorrow will be given to me WHEN I GET THERE. Jesus put it like this,“”So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew‬ ‭6:34‬ ‭

Jesus just has a way with words doesn’t he?

‘No crown of glory without a cross of suffering’….

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Paul Bennison Posted in Evangelism, Journal, Personal, Random Thoughts, Testimony, Travel 1 Comment

I posted on Facebook recently that I was re-reading a book I first read soon after it’s publication – and about 4 more times since – ‘Lilies amongst Thorns’ (1991, Sovereign World). It’s been out of print tragically for some time now, but can still be bought ‘used’ on Amazon: it’s the story by Chinese Christians of their walk with God into revival – and the COST of that walk. When I first went to China, I had what was, for me before I did it the first time, the task of leading teams into China from Hong Kong taking Bibles to Pastors. First time I thought of going looking to buy adult nappies to wear, especially for the border crossing! It changed my life to meet Chinese Pastors, living in revival as a matter of daily life, living in miracles: it changed my life forever to hear their stories, and to meet and shake hands with the first two ex-dead people I’d ever met, two ladies – one who’d been dead 4 days and the other 7 days. Samuel Lamb, the pastor who introduced them to me, saw my face when he told me after I’d finished greeting them – absolute astonishment – and his first question to me then was ‘What’s your problem Paul? This happens every day in China!’ and holding his Bible right up to my face, said ‘It says it in here that we’ll do these things, and if it says it in here, it WILL happen’. I realised then what a comfortable gospel we’re taught in the west, as the revival in China – as you probably know – was and still is born out of the most unbelievable persecution. I thought I’d put what I wrote on Facebook in a blog in case you don’t ‘do’ Facebook. This is it:

A few days ago I posted here about a book, ‘Lilies amongst Thorns’, an ‘old’ book now (1991), but it’s a book about why there’s revival in China, not because God smiled, snapped his fingers and said ‘be revived’, but because Christians were, and still are to this day, willing to pay a massive price to see God move. I’m reading it for about the 5th time, and it still makes me weep at what a pathetic price I’ve paid to be in ministry and still expect to see God move. Ross Patterson, a great man of God, then Director of Chinese Church Support Ministries, says on the back: ‘the lessons of this book are strategic for those who would see revival. Our Chinese brothers and sisters in Christ understand that there is no crown of glory without a cross of suffering. The message is not an easy one but a vital one.

The book has the original story of ‘The heavenly man’ – Brother Yun – who as a prisoner of the Security Police, was tortured mercilessly for years, before he knew he had to fast. After 39 days without food AND water, God spoke to him as the devil taunted him incessantly that he could give up the next day as Jesus had only done 40 days and did Yun think he was greater than his Master? God’s word to him we from John 14:12 ‘that greater things he would do than Jesus did’ so he carried on. He’d begun on January 25 1984, and without food and water, carried on through to April 7 1984 – 74 days (humanly impossible for the body to survive and no one in history had ever gone that long). Hundreds in the prison were saved when they saw his sacrifice and torture ( electric rods, leather whips, big needles inserted under each of his finger nails regularly, prisoners urinating and defecating on him and much more… After 74 days he weighed less than 30kgs -66 pounds, 4 stone 7 pounds, his wife didn’t recognise him (he was the size of a 6 year old – a man in his 30s) – but revival came. I’ve lost 55kgs in 18 months – nearly what Yun weighed – and I’m still overweight.,. Would we pay that price and sing scripture 70 days into a fast to see Jesus move in power?

No crown of glory without a cross of suffering. Am I ready for that? Are you? How much do you love Jesus and want his Kingdom to come to earth? The Chinese Church pray that the ‘West’ will be blessed with the ‘precious gift of persecution’. Do we really want revival? If you want to be challenged to the very root of your being, read this book, it’ll cost as little as 1p (0.50 cents USA) on Amazon….

I had the privilege of meeting Yun and other pastors – including Wang Ming Dao, the Father and founder of the Chinese House Church movement (now about 150 million people strong) – who have been horrendously persecuted/incarcerated (Samuel Lamb years in a coal mine in Siberia in constant sub zero temperatures for about 20 years), George Chen and others, soon after their releases from captivity, and in 1987 when I met them, they’d say it was a privilege to be considered worthy to suffer for Jesus – and had hundreds of churches with millions of members as testimony to their sacrifice and their suffering…

Wang Mingdao was an independent Chinese Protestant pastor and evangelist imprisoned for his faith by the Chinese government from 1955 until 1980. He has been called the “Dean of the House Churches.”^[1]

Tragically, if you’ve ever heard ‘The Heavenly Man’, Yun, speak since he got to the west, he says that the worst persecution he’s ever faced is from Christian in the west – ‘friendly(?) fire’. Church, we have light years to go in the west if we want to see God move. I’ve been the victim of friendly fire many times in 40 years in ministry, even recently, and man, it’s painful. We HAVE to change.

‘It’s a privilege to be considered worthy (by God) to suffer for Jesus’…. No crown of glory without a cross of suffering, no revival without massive sacrifice… do we really want revival?