I would like to give a report about our trip to Kentucky. As many know Della and I along with David & Sandra and Gary & Emily met in Kentucky for some scheduled meetings at two different churches.
We were very welcomed and we also felt appreciated. God does have a remnant there. The meetings were very good with A powerful anointing on most all endeavors. I felt a lot of warfare, and though I wasn’t as free in the spirit as I would have liked to be however, several people said they were blessed by what I brought. Where I lacked brother David and brother Gary made up for it. POWERFUL and DEEP words were brought. There are always some who really hear the word and others maybe not so much.
After two thirds of our team left on Saturday, I went out on personal visits. The first one was with a minister that had visited our meetings in the past. He was almost depressed when I arrived, but when we parted company we were both rejoicing in the Lord. We also had a time of powerful prayer. The second visit was with another minister. I was beginningto think that we were only going to have casual conversation, so I got up to leave; then is when the Spirit of the Lord began to move me, and I stayed for another twenty minutes. We also had a good time of prayer together. My third visit was with an elderly man, a friend of our family. His son came into the room and soon opened up to me that he was not saved, though he had tried many times by going forward to pray at church. I felt that the Lord showed me that he would not forgive himself.I shared with him and prayed for him, but he still didn’t confess Christ. Please pray for Joe Ross.
On Monday Della and I met with Ralph and Ruth for lunch. Ralph is the pastor of one of the churcheswhere we had meetings. We had a wonderful time with them. Ruth is truly a blessing. No doubt she will be among the Sons of God. While we were there, a man heard our conversation and started talking to us, and we ended up having prayer for him and his family. Della and I met with some Christian friends that were in my class in school. We had good fellowship.One of the twin girls was in the hospital for biopsy for a spot on her lung. Please pray for Eileen Roberts. We also visited my first cousin, Steve Smith, in the hospital with lung problems. He is also having a biopsy.Please pray for him. My last Kentucky visit was with my childhood friend, who was the moderator of the old primitive Baptist association for over thirty years. They are nick named hard shell Baptist, but I am working on him little by little.
God Bless Keep this work in prayer.
Denver Ferguson
After the conference in Atlanta, Emily and I (Gary) joined the Walter and drove up to Louisa, Kentucky for ministry to two different groups there. We joined Denver and Della Ferguson there. Denver and Della grew up in that area, and have many of their family members still living in that area. The Walter’s have been there for ministry many times over the past ten years, and they are well received.
The groups we ministered to are precious people. They have a Baptist background, but are coming into the things of the Spirit, and I believe have a heart for the Kingdom. It was precious to see the liberty in Spirit and the desire for truth.
One of the wonderful things about these brethren is their singing. We met several there that really had powerful voices. It was an interesting mix. Both Emily and Sandra were able to share several songs. They have a “country style” that we enjoyed, and we were able to share our songs, which I believe they enjoyed. At first you could be taken back by it because it’s different than what we are used to. But I heard their heart cry, and I sensed the Spirit of the Lord in it. I had to put aside my style, my preferences, and what I was familiar to me. I had to recognized how great God is, and how he can meet us in whatever “style” we may have as long as our heart is in the right place. Even though I believe God is delivering us from the spirits of our cultures and the “familiar,” God is still able to work through our styles and languages and even those things that our common to us. I thought of all the different people in the world, and with that all the different languages and ways of singing and worshiping even. Man looks on the outward, but God looks on the heart. God hears the heart.
God does not have one language, one culture, one style, one way to dress, one way to act, one way for us to worship, and not even one way to minister. God is the God of variety. All nature declares His glory. Just look at the rainbow. He’s magnificent. When we get stuck in a pattern and have only one way that
we must function in God, it not only limits us, but limits God. It’s religion; and religion ends in death. This doesn’t mean however, that God allows anything and everything. There’s more carnal religious activity out there (and in here) than we know. It’s all about what is motivating our heart, and the leading of the Spirit of the Lord. The litmus is simple. That which is Spirit is good and righteous, and that which is carnal is death. May God give us discernment to know the difference. And here’s the kicker: We could do the same song or the same message that was anointed and a blessing to everyone one time, and do it again, and it’s as dead as a doornail. It’s all about the fresh move of the Spirit, the Rhema, the anointing. This keeps us on our faces before God. Especially in ministry. Think of it (not to scare you away from ministry) but we have a great responsibility when we minister. We have the power to bring life or death to people. The power to resuscitate, or to poison. That’s a wonderful, scary thought. But praise God, isn’t that perfect. We are a people that claim to be Spirit led. So let’s just move it that, and NOT move without that.
Here’s another kicker. It seems we’ve got two groups of brethren: those that want to speak and those that don’t want to speak. Those that speak without of the leading of the Holy Spirit are wrong, but those that don’t speak when the Spirit is leading them, are equally as wrong. May God help us all. We strive for that perfect balance of “divine order.” Praise God.
Most of you know me, but few have heard me. I’m in the group that holds back. It’s in my nature. I would rather sit and listen than to share. There are many in this category. But God is delivering us from our natures, at least those aspects of our natures that hinder His purposes, and hinder even our calling in Christ from being manifested. May God help us.
There are those that can’t wait to say something, and others that never say a peep. Well, praise God. As I said, God is a God of variety. He’s not interested in making us all the same. God can use outgoing, loud, expressive people, and He can use quiet people as well. The key is that He wants His nature to be developed in us, and He wants us to fulfill His calling upon us. We need to lay ourselves, and all that that means, all that we are, upon the altar and say “Christ, make me an instrument for your glory.”
We pray God gives us the opportunity to go back to Louisa again soon.
A fun extra bonus to the trip was being able to go by the old “Zion Ministry” building in Ashville, North Carolina where Sisters Jewel Courtney and Annette Marsnick lived and ministered in the late 1980’s and 90’s. In the back of this building is a big sanctuary where Jewel taught us the song “After three days He will rev
ive us…” the morning God gave it to her.
They both passed away in the mid 1990’s; but what they imparted into many lives, including Emily and me, lives on.
We thank God for Jewel and her songs that are being song around the world. Praise God.
