 brothers in Christ. Father Dave's word just now about surprises of the Holy Spirit really resonated with me and I have the same sense the Holy Spirit wants to surprise us this week so I want to just begin with a prayer just inviting the Holy Spirit to come and do whatever he wants in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen we invite you Holy Spirit we welcome you in this place Spirit of God there is infinitely more to you than we have yet thought or imagined we welcome you into our hearts and into our minds and we stand ready for your surprises Holy Spirit blow like a fresh wind through us and through this place breathe on us blow away from us all that is earth bound and man centered so we would be ready to move with you Holy Spirit we ask this through Christ our Lord amen name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen I was thinking this morning as I was praying about this talk about the fact that many people think that the Catholic charismatic renewal which began 51 years ago is passé it's at its day if you look around especially North America and Europe you know it's waning numbers are declining prayer groups are shrinking graying aging seems to be something that's over and done move on to something else and I want to say to you beloved brothers in Christ that from what I can see what I've witnessed all over the world God isn't done yet God is not done yet God is only beginning what he had in mind when he poured out his Holy Spirit in a whole fresh new way beginning with college students at Duquesne close to this place 51 years ago I was in Poland this past weekend I met many young people spirit filled incredibly impressive in the way that they were moving with with God and one of them was a young couple they were filled with the Holy Spirit at age 22 they founded a community this community is growing and it's evangelizing and two years ago when Pope Francis was in Poland for World Youth Day they prepared a team of 111 people to evangelize the youth who would be there and this team went out on the streets and they just walked up to everybody and asked do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit and they prayed over 8,000 young people to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and in many cases when they prayed over people oil started dripping off their hands a supernatural sign God is truly moving in new ways in this time and I really believe as I look back over the last 51 years and I've been praying and asking the Lord why are you doing what you are doing help help me to understand your purposes help me to read the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the gospel I think the the main purpose is clear through the last four popes the Lord has been calling the church to a new evangelization to go out once again into the highways and the byways and to bring home the lost and the broken and to gain back for the Lord the world that had wandered away from him and that he died and paid the price of his most precious blood to redeem the Lord is sending us out once more into this new evangelization and yet how have we been doing in this new evangelization in the Western world not so great so far our churches packed with people coming to because they want to know Jesus coming to be baptized and formed in him and grow of course not most parts of this country it's going in the other direction why is that happening because I think we haven't yet picked up on what the Lord is doing we haven't yet recognized that what he did beginning in 1967 was to once again equip his bride the body of Christ with a full supernatural power of heaven that Jesus her Lord gave her from the beginning to carry out her evangelizing mission he never intended it to be carried out by human resources only if you look at how Jesus first commissioned the 12 to begin to share in his mission he sent them out on a practice mission he said go preach the kingdom of God but that's not all he said right he didn't say you know give people an eloquent message a very convincing catechetical apologetic doctrinal treatise nothing wrong with that I'm on favor that that's that's not what Jesus said he said go preach the kingdom heal the sick raise the dead cleanse lepers cast out demons preach it in words and in supernatural signs and wonders supernatural deeds by which I will confirm the truth of the words he said that to the 12 we sometimes think well yeah but they you know they were of course special unique 12 apostles the foundation stones of the church yes they were but actually if you turn the page from Luke 9 where he sends out the 12 to Luke 10 where he sends out a bigger group of 70 representing all his disciples he gives them the same commission go preach the kingdom of God heal the sick preach it in words and in deeds that corroborate the truth of the words the kingdom is here Christ is alive God loves you and he has sent his son to redeem you and to free you from everything that keeps you from the fullness of life that he intended for you and then when Jesus ascended into heaven he promised the supernatural power for them to actually carry out that commission the Holy Spirit it never says anywhere in the New Testament nor does it say anywhere in the teachings of the church that our Lord has changed his missionary instructions they remain the same today and yet we have neglected them for such a long time that the Lord has had to do something extraordinary in our time and he did it even before the popes began talking about a new evangelization beginning in 1967 and now what the Lord is doing once again in our time today 2018 is actually a return to normal healings miracles prophecies words of knowledge faith that moves mountains discernment of spirits casting out spirits supernaturally reconciling enemies bringing peace where there was no peace all of that moving in the power of the Holy Spirit for the proclamation of the gospel is a return to normal because walking in the supernatural as we see from the whole New Testament is the normal Christian life and so thank God for what he's doing today I'll just give you a couple of examples of how the Lord is he's just pulling out all the stops today at a parish near me in Michigan they held an alpha course probably must do your familiar with the alpha course it's basic evangelization it's not catechesis it's pre-catechesis it's for people who are way far away from God and the church to help answer their questions and proclaim the gospel to them and so they were going through this and there was a young girl attending named Kate and she came to one of the alpha sessions just having received a terrible diagnosis well actually not a diagnosis but basically just a report from her doctor her whole body was covered with hives and what looked like bug bites her doctor and sent her to the allergist who told her you have some anaphylactic reaction to some unknown allergen we can't figure out what it is because there's no single spot on your skin that's healthy that we can even use for testing if you come in contact with this allergen again which we we don't know what it is your throat could close in five minutes and you could die so imagine what the burden lying on this girl as she comes to the alpha session that night and at the end of the she knows she's paying attention but at the end she's she's in tears because she's so desperate and the people around her said let's pray over her and her parish priest Father Mark Rutherford led a group of people praying over her and these people were just ordinary folks they weren't charismatic renewal folks they weren't experienced in prayer ministry but they laid hands on this young girl and they they just prayed for her for the Lord to heal her then she went home with her mom and her sister and later on as she was changing into Brajamas they heard her begin to scream they ran into her room she's looking at her arms they're totally clear no more scabs no more glory to God and then her sister says wow when we were praying over you I was praying over your legs and your legs felt really hot so she lifted up her pant leg her legs to totally clear and then her father came in and the entire family were so in awe they spent the entire night praising and thanking and worshiping God the power of God came into that family that night they can't be the same after that and here's another story a friend of mine Patrick Rice he has founded encounter ministries if you're not familiar with that yet I encourage you to look it up he was a youth minister and he organized night fever with his youth group you might have heard of night fever and it's a beautiful concept it's where you hold Eucharistic adoration in a church that's in a city area and then the kids go out into the streets and they invite people in off the street say come on in you can just you can light a candle you could spend a few minutes with the Lord you're most welcome so they held this and the young people went out on the street and they found a guy in a wheelchair and they gave him a rosary and they said come on into the church for night fever and so they were very happy when he came and Patrick saw this guy there in a wheelchair introduced himself and said is there anything you'd like us to pray for for you he said well I I'm hungry I need food and I need money Patrick looked at him and just popped out of his mouth how would you like to walk and then he's thinking why did I say that but he knew the Lord was doing something so he said he said to this guy named Willie he said do you think Jesus could heal you I don't know but if you just close your eyes for a moment and ask Jesus do you want to heal me so he did that Patrick said are you getting anything no nothing and then Patrick said Willie is there anybody you need to forgive in your life he began to cry he said there's so many people I need to forgive and he talked about how his wife had left him and his seven children had left him and there were people who had abused him it was like his heart was cracking open and Patrick began to walk him through prayers of forgiveness forgiving any every one of the people who had offended him and then he said now I ask the Lord again do you want to heal me closed his eyes and he said yes he said yes he said yes he wants to heal me so Patrick said all right let's begin to pray where should we begin and Willie said well pray for my hands I got arthritis he also explained that he was in the wheelchair because he had been shot his spine had been damaged he hadn't been able to walk in seven years and on top of all that he had prostate cancer okay let's pray for arthritis Patrick got an image in his mind of Willie doing ballroom dancing he thought nah I don't think so he doesn't look like a ballroom dancing type but he just decided to move with it taking a risk in the spirit so he said Willie do you do you have any chance like to dance he said oh yeah my wife and I used to love to go ballroom dancing so Patrick said to one of the young girls who was there he said why don't you take his hands just swing them back and forth as if he's dancing so she did that in his wheelchair his pain started to leave then they prayed over his back he had severe pain in his back he felt pain drain out of his back he felt like the Lord was moving and without anybody asking he just kind of pulled himself up from his wheelchair and he he just began to hug all of the young people around who are watching this whole thing unfold and then Patrick said to him up there on the altar that that white host that's Jesus and you should go thank him for what he's doing and the next thing you know Patrick is walking to the altar supported by two kids in the youth group he's walking on his own to the altar and everybody in the room starts seeing what's happening and just praising and glorifying God that was seven years ago Willie does not need a wheelchair to this day he went to the doctor who said he's cancer-free can't figure out why his cancer is in remission Willie got a job and one of his kids has visited him his whole life has transformed glory to God so beloved brothers these are the kinds of things the Lord is doing today it's awesome what he's doing today and my talk is called authority and humility by the way I had no idea what Bishop Montfort was going to talk about that's when you know the Holy Spirit's in charge what I'm gonna say is fits very well with what he said even though it's doesn't overlap I'm sure the Holy Spirit planned it authority and humility because I believe if we want to be walking in the supernatural and the Lord wants every one of you to be walking in the supernatural whether you're a seminarian or you've been a priest for 20 years or 50 years the Lord has more for you he's not finished with you and the young people who are opening themselves to the Holy Spirit today they need you they need your wisdom they need your pastoring they need you to be a model the Lord wants you to be walking in the Holy Spirit how do we do that authority and humility you think of the most unusual person who ever lived Jesus of Nazareth one time it says in the Gospel of John that the chief priest sent some officers to arrest him and they came back without him and the and the chief priest said why didn't you arrest him they said no man ever spoke this way they were spellbound by him there was something totally unique about him on the one hand he had a breathtaking sense of his own exalted dignity and so he said things like you have heard it said and then he would give the law of Moses authored by God then he'd say but I say to you putting himself on a par with the divine logger he demanded absolute loyalty he said things like whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me shocking to say in that cultural context he hinted that he was greater than Solomon that he was greater than David greater than Jacob greater than Abraham greater than the temple he said I and the father are one this incredible sense of authority and dignity and yet on the other hand a stunning humility and meekness born in a stable in a place for animals spent most of his life life as a blue collar worker doing manual labor he hung out with the nobodies the unimportant the non-religious the disreputable people people of no account he said things like whoever receives one such child in my name receives me put himself on the par with a child he said the son can do nothing of his own accord but only what he sees the father doing or whatever the father does that the son does likewise he said take my yoke on you and learn from me because I'm meek and humble of heart what's the secret of that awesome authority united with that profound humility it's that Jesus was utterly secure in his identity as the beloved son at his baptism an act of total humility identifying with sinners undergoing the baptism of repentance for sin which he didn't need saying yes to the father's plan that he would be counted among sinners he came up from those waters and he heard the father's voice you are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased everything he did from that moment on was rooted in a profound human security of his father's love then the Holy Spirit propelled him into the desert Satan tempted him and you remember the very first words that Satan spoke to him or the very first words the evil one said if you are the Son of God immediately sowing doubt immediately trying to undermine that truth spoken by the father trying to get Jesus to doubt his identity as the beloved Son of God because if he could do that then he could get Jesus to try to shore up his identity by doing spectacular works like turning stones into bread jumping off the parapet of the temple and getting caught up by angels and if Satan had done that succeeded in getting Jesus to do that then Jesus would have been a messiah other than that willed by the father and his whole mission would have been derailed and Satan would win Satan tried to undermine his identity so he could derail his destiny and Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit resisted those lies and he stood in the truth of who he was as the father's beloved son Jesus didn't need his ego to be propped up or stroked or supported or approved by any human being he was never defensive he had nothing to defend neither flattery nor insult could move him at all nothing could budge him from his position standing in who he was in the eyes of the father sometimes his adversaries would lay on flattery thick and they would say things like teacher we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully and are not concerned with anyone's opinion for you do not regard a person's status now tell us whether we should pay taxes to Caesar or not trying to trip him up right trying to make make that effusive praise make him let down his guard so they could catch him he ignored it didn't budge other times they took the opposite tack look a glutton and a drunkard a friend of tax collectors and sinners in the gospel of John they even say aren't we right in saying you have a Samaritan you are a Samaritan and have a demon for a Jew no worse insult could be imagined he didn't budge didn't move him at all or they would threaten sometimes Jesus get out of here Herod wants to kill you go tell that Fox that I cast out demons and perform healings today and tomorrow and on the third day I finished my course in other words I don't budge from the mission the father has me on I don't move a muscle without him and I don't turn to the right or to the left based on any human threats or any human praise authority and humility rooted in the father's affirmation of his identity what did that have to do with his acts of power his walking in the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit because he knew who he was because he lived his life in communion with the father and rooted himself in the father's affirmation of his identity he could carry out his mission with absolute confidence because he knew it was his mission given by the father now that's Jesus how about us we're not quite there yet right in fact we're all born in this fallen world with an identity crisis how many of you are familiar with the movie the born identity few of you well at the beginning of that movie the born identity this guy wakes up adrift on the ocean and he has amnesia he doesn't know who he is or how he got there it's terrifying of course he finds that he has a passport and on the passport is the name Jason born but he knows that that's a false identity he's he's walking through life with a false identity not knowing who he is or where he comes from or what his life is about and the movie is all about his quest to discover his true identity Jason born is an image of people in this fallen and broken world that we live in how many people are adrift wounded confused about their identity wearing a false identity wearing a mask hiding themselves from other people and even from themselves because they have no idea who they are and so people in this fallen world are the opposite of Jesus we lack authority and we lack humility at one in the same time we tend to be both prideful and timid we tend to be arrogant and fearful because we're insecure in who we are and so we have to we have to shore up our identity and so we we base it on what we achieve and how other people view us whether we're admired and esteemed popular or beautiful or athletic or sexy or wealthy or smart or probably more likely in our case how holy we are we base our identity on how holy we are even that has nothing to do with where our true identity lies we think we have to earn God's love like the older brother in the prodigal parable of the prodigal son and so we work hard to make ourselves better and more worthy in the eyes of God and we constantly measure ourselves compare ourselves to others we get offended sometimes even crushed if someone does something that undermines our identity and the picture that we've built up of ourselves now of course that's the state of fallen humanity but the good news that you especially as priests and deacons are called to proclaim to everyone in this world is that we have a born identity one we're born with one that cannot change it cannot be taken with taken from us because it's not something that we invented or can control or could construct in the first place but something we were born with given by God from the first moment of our existence in fact even before we existed born as his beloved children destined to be with him forever if we believe in him and we accept his invitation to know him and love him of course even more in Christ we have a reborn identity Christians are those with a reborn identity baptized into Christ and therefore adopted as a son or daughter of God a king a royal heir just as Satan tried to attack Jesus's identity so he does for us he will do everything in his power and of course as a fallen angel he's very smart and he knows for every one of us which buttons to push and every morning when you wake up he's scheming about how he can undermine your identity and how he can plunder you rob you of the peace and the joy and the victory that belong to you by inheritance as a son of God so he'll whisper things in your mind you loser you're never gonna get better you're always making that same mistake you don't pray enough you're not holy enough you're not virtuous enough you fail too often you need to make up for your sins you need to do a lot better who do you think you are to ask God for something so big you're not worthy to be used by God whatever the script is that it works for you the evil one is trying to put into your mind all the time and think about the things that knock you off your position of peace and joy and confidence in your sonship in the mission the Lord has for you for some it might be any time you hear a cutting remark or put down for some it might be when when your plans fall through you had something all organized and set up and it just fell apart or it might be getting resistance or opposition or passive aggressive behavior from other people or maybe when somebody points out your faults and failings or maybe you've been praying hard for something and it wasn't answered the way you wanted it to be answered and the evil one begins sowing those lies and we so easily listen to them rather than standing firm in our position the way Jesus did it's precisely because of that because we were insecure in our identity we base our identity on human standards that we lack expectant faith for the Lord to move through us in powerful ways in fact Jesus said this to the religious leaders they were the ones who were who were meant to be setting the pace for the rest of God's people Jesus said to them in John 5 verse 44 how can you believe when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God receiving praise from others letting that be your I mean of course there's nothing wrong with receiving praise in itself but but making that your foundation and your security that actually keeps you from believing how can you believe when you seek praise from others and so in order for us to be deeply rooted in that identity that God has given us that reborn identity as sons and daughters of the king we need the revelation that can only come from the Holy Spirit Jesus said when the spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth what truth well I think St. Francis of Assisi summed it up so well he prayed to know two things who are you Lord and who am I those are the truths the Holy Spirit wants to bring us into at a very deep level who he is and who I am in him we can spend our whole life just learning those two truths who are you Lord the Holy Spirit is the one who reveals to us the passionate crazy love of God the father the all-consuming fire of his love his unimaginable compassion for every human person his lordship over the whole universe the victory of Jesus his majesty reigning over all that nothing happens outside of his lordship and his permission the Holy Spirit shows us who he is and who am I Lord I'd say there's an A and a B to what the Lord shows us about ourselves first he shows us we're poor I'm poor there's something deep in it each of us that resists being poor I don't want to be poor I want to have something great to show God I don't want to be needy the Holy Spirit shows us and if you've ever prayed for humility you might have discovered as one of the quickest prayers God ever answers and he shows you your poverty you know we can we can pray oh Lord I'm nothing I'm incapable of anything without you I can do nothing apart from you and then all of a sudden we fall flat on our face and we know it at a whole new level right only the Holy Spirit can do that St. Paul said when he asked the Lord to remove a thorn in the flesh the Lord said my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness Paul said I will all the more gladly boast of my weakness I'm not gonna be ashamed of it anymore I'm not gonna be discouraged by it I'm not gonna be weighed down by my weakness I'm just gonna rejoice in my weakness hallelujah I'm pathetic I'm desperate hallelujah that means Lord you can show your power all the more in me St. Therese of Lisieux she said that when she arrived in heaven she'd have nothing to show the Lord but empty hands and she wasn't troubled by that one bit because he was the one who's gonna fill her hands she wasn't troubled by her littleness her her lack of some of the glorious virtues that some of the greater saints caramelized had she just wanted to be empty before the Lord and let him fill her St. John the Baptist said I must decrease but he must increase what a beautiful thing to decrease day by day by day that the Lord would increase in us and the more I know my poverty and I embrace my poverty and I I recognize my weakness and I'm not ashamed of it and I'm not discouraged by it the more I lean on the Lord the more radically I depend on him and the more freely he's able to act little story that illustrates that is told by my my good friend Dr. Bob shoots and if you know Dr. Bob shoots oh he's a wonderful guy he's a therapist in Florida and he also does a lot of prayer for healing and a lot of prayer for baptism in the Holy Spirit and he tells about how one time he was asked to give a week at the theology of the body Institute a week of teachings on sexual healing and it was going to be for people who had experienced sexual trauma and so he prepared for this for months he had a friend Father Mark who was going with him they both prayed for it and all the time leading up to it Bob prayed for poverty spiritual poverty and so they got to the beginning of this this week-long seminar and went through the first day and he was teaching and all his wonderful material about healing from sexual trauma second day went through his teaching and by the end of the second day or might have been the third day he he realized the people were getting a bit overwhelmed and they were restless and they just couldn't they couldn't really take it in anymore they he just wasn't getting through to them anymore and so he let them go early for the day and he came to his friend Father Mark and he said they're not even listening to me anymore this is terrible I don't know what I'm gonna do Father Mark said hooray this is what you've been praying for spiritual poverty and right then and there he went to confession to Father Mark and he just just confessed his self-reliance and he reaffirmed his absolute reliance on the Lord okay Lord you do this I can't do it and the next day he went to begin the class again and as he was beginning he felt the Holy Spirit say stop don't do what you were planning to do I want you to just read out Isaiah 61 now I think it was because of his prayer for that poverty that Bob was able to hear and obey that word rather than just launching into his prepared lesson he was able to hear no don't rely on what what you have planned what you know how to do rely on me and so he began to proclaim Isaiah 61 the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor to bind up the brokenhearted and as he proclaimed that word he said I can I can hardly begin to describe to you what happened next except to say that the students later dubbed it Pentecost Thursday the Holy Spirit began to fall on that group and after Bob finished proclaiming that passage people began to weep and they began to wail like really deep grief coming up from within and this went on for a while people were releasing their grief and then as suddenly as it had begun it stopped and there was a deep profound silence and then after a few minutes of that all of a sudden somebody started a song or something and there was just this burst of praise this this burst of thanksgiving to God and people were healed and touched at a deep level way beyond anything Bob could have done in his teaching because he had embraced his poverty so the Holy Spirit reveals our poverty but at the very same time he reveals our incredible dignity our incredible authority in Christ picture this image as a kind of example you're up on a high mountain overlooking a splendid vista and you see in the distance fields and hills and rivers and villages and standing next to you is an attorney and he puts his hand around his arm around you and he says you see that rolling those rolling hills in the distance and the mountains the village over there yeah he says that's yours you've inherited it say wow and then he says you see over there that river like a silver thread running through the forests and and the fields behind that yeah it's yours you've inherited it you know who that attorney is it's the Holy Spirit he's the one who reveals to us the kingdom that we've inherited it from God our Father by our baptism into Christ without that revelation from the Holy Spirit our inheritance remains nothing but a document locked away in a filing cabinet in the attorney's office but when the Holy Spirit reveals that inheritance to us we respond in faith faith is a response to revelation and when we respond in faith then we go out and explore that territory and we begin to enjoy that inheritance because it's not meant to be only a document locked away in a filing cabinet even in this life we're meant to actually take possession of that kingdom for the king of kings and that kingdom is this whole world that he wants to win back to himself so the Holy Spirit gives us that revelation of our inheritance and we respond in faith by acting on it and we believe his revelation about our deepest identity as a son or daughter of God Padre Pio said this I found this in a passage from the letters of Saint Pio of Pietro Cina and this is this is back before anybody was talking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit or the charismatic renewal he said any mental picture of your life that focuses on past sins is a lie and this comes from the devil Jesus loves you and has forgiven your sins so there is no room for having a downcast spirit whatever persuades you otherwise is truly a waste of time it is also something that offends the heart of our very tender lover on the other hand if the mental picture of your life consists in what you can be or could be then it comes from God in other words the Lord wants us to dream with him to allow him to fill our hearts with vision that comes from him about what his plan is for us whether you're younger or older the Lord wants us to open our eyes to the greater things that he has for us the immense inheritance that he has for us and the rule that he has for each one of us in regaining this world for his beloved son once we discover that once we realize the magnitude of our inheritance and our dignity in Christ we can't be overcome anymore by lesser things once we get that revelation from the Holy Spirit we can't be dominated anymore by other spirits now they're gonna rise up in us but they won't be able to dominate us anymore the spirit of lust spirit of discouragement spirit of guilt spirit of judgment spirit of depression they won't be able to rule over us anymore because when we know who we are in Christ we will have confidence to fight that battle because we know who has won the battle priests and deacons who know their identity in Christ and the authority they have in Christ are not intimidated by the tactics of the enemy because they know God is their father they know the Lord Jesus is victorious who's with them always they know that in this battle we're engaged in that their clothes in the armor of God and nothing can ultimately hurt them they've read the book to the last page and they know who wins and Satan is terrified of priests and deacons like that and of Christians like that because when the church is filled with disciples like that who walk in the peace and the joy of their identity in Christ walking in the authority of Christ and the humility of Christ free from the bondages of the enemy then the dominion of darkness is in big trouble I also have learned a lesson from the centurion in the gospel who came to Jesus with a request for his beloved servant who's lying at home deathly ill and he asked Jesus to come and heal him but then he said but I'm a man under authority with soldiers under me I say to one go and he goes into another come and he comes my servant do this he does that it's actually the only time in the gospels that Jesus actually marvels at something that somebody says to him just imagine Jesus himself was struck wow I've never seen faith like that this guy gets it he gets it he's a man under authority he's carrying out the commands of the Roman Empire he's not doing his own thing he's not building his own Empire he's carrying out the commands of his superior officers and because of that he has a rightful authority over his servants and they obey him Jesus is saying he gets me I live under the father's authority I do only as the father has commanded me because I love the father and I know his love for me and because of that I walk in absolute confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit that when I command sickness and even death they obey me he gets it another example think of two elementary school teachers some of you may have elementary schools in your parish so you may know what this is like some teachers are insecure in their identity as teacher and their authority and so they walk into a classroom where the kids are acting up and being boisterous and talking out of turn and they say okay now children quiet down and the kids ignore them right and the teacher starts to threaten maybe she starts to yell if you don't quiet down right now you're not gonna have any recess today I'm gonna give you extra homework I'm gonna send you to the principal but the more she threatens the more they ignore her because they know she doesn't really mean it she doesn't really stand behind what she says but then think of another one another teacher I know one like this she's a she's now a high school principal she can walk into an auditorium of 500 teenagers and before she's said a word they've settled down they just know she means business she doesn't have to threaten she loves them they know she loves them she just walks in her authority as principal and previously as teacher and therefore they obey her that's how the Lord wants us to be walking in the face of sickness in the face of obstacles to the mission of the church and to our mission that's the way he wants us to be walking in the face of the hindrances that the enemy will throw in our path confident in the authority that we have in Christ but walking in utter humility because we know it isn't us it's not about us at all it's about him you may have heard that today one of the reasons we're living in an extraordinary time is that in many parts of the world raisings of the dead are not unusual anymore and you know where the greatest number as far as we know from various reports the greatest number of the raisings of the dead is taking place right now it's in one of the poorest countries of the world Mozambique in the ministry of Heidi and Roland Baker and it's not so much Heidi and Roland who are praying for the dead and seeing the dead race it's the people that they have evangelized way in these remote jungle villages who have nothing and think nothing of themselves who who just live in little huts with dirt floors they don't have a ministry they hardly get paid they they don't know a whole lot but they've been evangelized and they've been trained a little bit and they're on fire for God and when a child dies or when somebody dies in the village often they will take that that child or that person and just pray with all their hearts sometimes even for one two three days fasting and praying and sometimes that person will rise from the dead they're totally empty of themselves totally free from self-reliance self-puffing up and therefore they have room to be absolutely filled with the power of God manifest through them so my prayer for you this week is that as Father Dave said the Holy Spirit would surprise you that you would put off any limits that you've placed on God any ways that you that you've put the Lord in a box and said well he does this through me but he doesn't do this through me or maybe he used to do this I used to have that gift but not anymore it's it's done I pray that you would just put off those limits and let the Holy Spirit give you new revelation and I want to just pray as as the disciples prayed in Acts chapter 4 as the church was starting to undergo persecution oh Lord look upon their threats and grant your servants these priests deacons and seminarians Lord grant them to speak your word with all boldness with a new boldness while you Lord stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are done in the name of your holy servant Jesus for the building up of the church and for the evangelization of the world in Jesus's name amen