Sunday 15 September 2013

MY TESTIMONY Tread Lightly please



A time or Spiritual Positioning and Understanding:
 My Perspective in 2011
By Kim Rekedal
Watchmen:
In my life, I have from the time I was a toddler had many questions about the supernatural and maybe more so about the continuing battle in what today I know as the Spiritual Realm.  I was likely around 2 when I first saw things in the spiritual realm that I quickly learnt others did not see and I also think the first time I met Jesus was around the age of 2, although, I didn’t know who he was and not growing up in a Christian family hadn’t heard of Jesus. 
My oldest sister Jan became a Christian at a summer camp when she was around 12 and started going to an Anglican Church she wanted to be confirmed an so we started going to church for a brief time and were baptized into the Anglican Church. We didn’t go long I don’t remember anything except that I tried out for the choir and was told to sit with these 3 ladies at the front who I thought were called the awful singers (Today I realize they were the alto singers but what did I know.) I remember the baptism because my Aunt Proxy and Uncle Gordie were there and became my God parents, alright they weren’t my aunt and uncle but rather cousins and her name was Pearl and not Proxy(A nick name my dad gave her) but still they were my God parents that sounded nice.   We moved to the country which I hated when I was 12 and shortly after that a lady took me to Sunday school which was with people and I loved being with people. I asked my parents for a Bible for my birthday and got it I started to read it over and over again I don’t know how many times. Looking back I think I had some pretty decent understanding of things considering having really no teaching in it at all.
I got into satanic things and was getting further and further in. I was taking Social Studies in school and we were to do a presentation on things that affect the world and our community we were to try to get people from the community to speak to the class. I had asked to bring the leader of a occult group that I had been meeting with my teacher said it would have to get approval from the principal for that to happen. Then one night I was laying on my bed and I could see this serpent coming closer and closer I remember being terrified but unable to move it slowly start to wind around me until I could not take a full breath I remember at that time crying out Jesus if you are here help me now!  Everything stopped, silence peace and it scared me almost as much as the serpent.
The next day my Teacher Mr. Stone told me that the school board had said no to the Satanist coming in to the class, he suggested that I do a report on The “Jesus People”  I had heard of them just once. A girlfriend that was older then I, and lived across the road from me in the country this is a big deal.  She said “don’t become one of those crazy Jesus people”.  Then she moved away got married and that was the extent of my knowledge.  Mr. Stone told me I could show how their beliefs were ridiculous and a cult. So that is what I did.

I went to a Coffee house in 1975 held by Peoples Church. It was an event like I had never seen and right from the start thought this is a crazy place.  When I got there it was set for the coffee house, but there wasn’t anyone around.  I walked around and looked at things, when this girl Sharon ran upstairs from the basement hair in pig tails, wearing blue jeans rolled up to her knees sweating and panting “the basement has flooded I can’t stay up just make yourself at home the others will be back right away, see ya” and she was gone. The others did come back with a bang they told me they had been out witnessing and it was all going to start right away.  People got up and started playing music everyone was so happy and it was really different.  I did find some people that I knew somewhat, they ate lunch at school in the same room I did but they sat in one corner away from the rest of us.  I had called ahead about doing a report on them and so I got to interview a lady called Marj Mullen.  Here is how it went,
 Me: How long has this Church been here? 
Marj: pulled out a napkin and drew a cross and said:  there are 2 kingdoms one the kingdom of Darkness and the other the Kingdom of light.
Me: does it have a Pastor?
Marj: in the kingdom of darkness there are sins, like stealing, lying, murder, hate, free love “Sex outside of marriage” and so on.
Me: what do people have to do to belong to this Church?
Marj: on the other side is the Kingdom of Light where …. While I never got one answer to any of my questions.  Then this very weird man got up to speak at the end of the Coffee house he talked about something I have no idea what, but at the end he said if you want to meet Jesus come up here right now.  So up I went I really wanted to meet this Jesus.  I expected to meet a person, not to ask Him into my life but I did meet Jesus but it was on the inside and not the outside.  I can’t tell you how or exactly what happened but I knew it had happened.  Marj and Karen a girl from school took me into this small nursery later and read more scriptures and started to pray in tongues and so did I, I loved it!  The next day and the first event I went to at the Church after that was a funeral.  The funeral was amazing this woman who had died was the mother of a boy I went to school with, but they weren’t mourning her they were celebrating her first day in Heaven, that blew my mind.   Two days after the funeral I went to church for the first time, a girl from school met me at the door and took me to sit with her she got down on her knees towards her chair and she told me it was time to pray so I did what she did and I prayed. I liked prayer it felt good and right it was not hard and so it went. I looked at these people and wanted to have everything they had and do everything there was to do.
Pastor Mel Mullen and some other people came to my class and Pastor Mel before they left asked me to stand up and give my testimony as to what God had done in me.  A week before everyone knew that I mostly talked about Satan today what a shock. I got an A+ for the presentation but failed the course because I dropped out of school, moved into a girl’s house with the Church and started working. In hind sight maybe not the smartest move but God made it work well.
 The first big thing I did after becoming a Christian was to do a 30 day fast, well actually I only made it 26 days because I got very sick and couldn’t keep working. The other thing that confused me was how many rules people told me about fasting.  You were not allowed to tell anyone, you weren’t to brush your teeth because toothpaste was food you had to get mental crystals and just suck on them.  You had to pray so many hours and anytime you would have been eating you were supposed to be praying or it wasn’t a real fast.  Today I think it was really quite comical but back then I think it is part of what made me sick.  Prayer was the one thing I totally got.  Through the years and many more times reading my Bible and listening to sermons and some of the best preachers in the world, I learnt more and more.
There were a few things in the Bible that I thought we don’t seem to understand very well.  One was the scripture from:

2 Corinthians nkjv

 3 for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.


Our “weapons of warfare are not carnal” this scripture I did not understand.  I remember asking our prayer leader at the time what this meant he told me it meant like machine guns and knives etc. but I was not satisfied with that meaning.  Today we understand this better, I think now we have had so much teaching that we almost don’t want to hear about it.  We have had many prayer meetings that had no fruit, and maybe did more harm then good, that we are reluctant to even have them anymore.
Carnal defined is: Things related to the needs of the physical body rather than the spiritual body or of the flesh and physical world as in a desire for food, sexual gratification and material possessions.   
Back in the late 70 early 80’s the definition from Webster’s dictionary was much simpler: things that pertain only to the earthly world and not agreed to by the spiritual world. It later added the meaning of Carnal knowledge as inappropriate sexual activity that went against the Bible and its doctrines.
The way the world fights is with law suits and protest, with angry words and control and power but we fight with The Blood of the Lamb the Word of our testimony and loving not our lives even unto death.  Christ's Blood is what wins our battles. We exercise that Blood by Praying and declaring and Praise and worship etc.
This is the beginning of a long and sometime tedious and unpopular understanding of the scriptures.  I started to study strongholds and became to see them like a castle or a fort with watchtowers, fighting holes, Gatekeepers and doorkeepers, an army with a king or commander that kept all safe.  This in the Bible seemed to apply to both good and bad.  The above scripture shows us of course that God wants us to pull down strongholds that do not conform to the knowledge of God. Sometime in the early 90’s I had what we call Presbytery where we brought in two men that were like our Church’s Grandfathers One thing spoken over my life was that demons would fear and tremble when I spoke.  This led me on a journey of studying on this thing we know as spiritual warfare. I knew that were I was there I had some authority but was no where near what I thought would cause demons to fear and tremble when I spoke, but the attack that came that very same day let me know that I would have to earn that gifting.

Over the past 37 years I’ve have had maybe some of the best teaching on prayer, warfare, spiritual mapping, intercession, claiming territory, breaking curses and so on…. While I think we were so inundated in it which became overwhelming and even distorted so that we are reluctant to even talk about it. Today though I think we are entering into a time of “Strategic” warfare when all that we learnt in the past that was good it is time to put towards getting strategic in reaching our world and advancing the Kingdom of God.
Today I love to spend time in Prayer, In worship, In praise and in Spiritual warfare.  They all are meant towards an end THE KINGDOM OF GOD. My gifting in life is that I am a teacher. That is why I God has called me to write this blog it is just including you in my Journey.  I have spent almost 18 years working through the bugs in a prayer network that I believe is a pattern God showed Ezekiel in a Vision.  It is I believe what we need to do to see the Spirit of God poured out to the entire world.
So from here on you are invited to enjoy my Journey with me.
Please note unless otherwise noted all definitions come from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ and all scriptures are posted from http://www.Biblegateway.com  and are from the New King James version all Greek Hebrew and Chaldea definition will be from the Strong Exhaustive Concordance

No comments: