What happened on August 10 — written the morning after.
Date & location for the next Encounter coming soon — the list hears first.
I didn’t get to sleep until three. God woke me at 7:40.
When I sleep that late and wake up that early, I know what it is. He wants to talk. So I got up and started writing.
Last night was a move of God, and I need to be careful about how I say that.
Yes, there was a building. Yes, there were people serving. There was food, there were musicians, there was a room that got set up. All of that contributed to the assembly and the fellowship, and that fellowship was a gift from God in itself.
But me and my wife and everybody who served were stewards. Co-laborers. The Lord was the owner.
Because here’s the thing: there is absolutely nothing anyone could have done to make the other part happen. Not the setup. Not the sound. Not the preaching. What was felt in that room was placed on people’s hearts by God, and no amount of production makes that happen.
So we give all the glory to God.
I want to be precise, because people confuse these and it costs them.
He is omnipresent. He is everywhere at once, whether you believe in Him or not.
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” — Psalm 139:7
God did not show up at 6:00 PM. He was already in that room, and in your car, and in the room you’re reading this in.
He indwells the believer. When you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you become a child of God and His Spirit lives in you (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 6:19). You already carry Him. You can talk to Him right now, wherever you are.
And then there is His manifested glory — when the Presence that was always there becomes something you can feel at a physical level.
That is what filled that room.
Watch what Scripture says about this. Not a feeling — a mechanism:
“Indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD… that the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.” — 2 Chronicles 5:13–14
As one. One sound. Then the cloud.
And read the end of it again: the priests could not continue ministering. The professionals had to stop. When His glory actually fills a room, the program ends.
Same thing in Acts. “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:31).
This is why we did the devotions. This is why we did the fast. This is why there’s a discipleship community. Not as religious activity — to get a people on one accord before they ever walk in.
Because when our hearts are divided, I’m not going to say God can’t move. But we create roadblocks God doesn’t need. We build friction. We bring our ideologies and our structure and what we think a thing should look like, instead of saying Lord, have Your way — get me out of the way.
The Bible says do not quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Sometimes we actually do.
When we remove flesh, everything gets on one accord, and God moves freely.
I want to tell you something I learned last night.
The first time I called the altar, I did it on purpose the gentle way. I told people they didn’t have to come up. You can confess with your mouth right at your seat. You can pray to God right where you are. And that’s true — God hears you in the chair.
But me and my wife could both feel it. People were yearning for more, and they were hesitant.
So we called it again, and the second time we were more direct.
And people came up.
And when they came up — when they made room on purpose, when they made a public declaration at that altar — things started happening immediately.
“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” — Romans 10:9–10
God doesn’t need your feet to move. But something happens when a person is willing to be seen wanting Him.
People got saved. People rededicated their lives. People got prayed for. Breakthrough happened. That was the fruit of a room that got out of the way.
The fire alarm went off. More than once.
Now — it was the food in the oven. That’s the explanation. But my God has character. Sometimes you just have to look up and say, God, You’re funny.
Is that a sign? A miracle?
I’m not really sure. Maybe. Maybe not.
All I know is the alarm went off, people were carrying the fire, and God’s manifested glory was in that place.
At the end we were in fellowship, hugging, eating together — and somebody opened the door.
It was pouring. There was a flood warning.
I’ll take that two ways, and I’ll tell you both.
One: it was already storming while we were inside. It was already raining, and we didn’t know. That’s protection.
“So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.” — Genesis 7:16
Noah built the ark. Noah did not close the door. God did.
Prophetically, that’s what I saw: God telling me and my wife to build an ark, and we just did it. And everyone who picked up a hammer from 5:40 to 9:00 was building it with us.
And I believe some people who were in that room were protected inside those hours — from something in life, or from a plan of the enemy. Especially the ones who had to push through something to get there.
Am I saying that was a sign? Maybe. Maybe not.
But I know this: “Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past” (Isaiah 26:20).
We made room. Making room is not the finish line.
Jesus said it plainly:
“When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” — Matthew 12:43–45
Read what the house looked like. Swept. Put in order. Clean.
Clean was not the problem. Empty was.
If you walked out of that room decluttered and you never fill the space, Jesus says the last state is worse than the first. This is not a scare tactic — it’s Him telling us how it works.
So we fill it. With His Word. With worship. With prayer. With fasting. With assembling together — which is exactly what we did last night, and exactly why we keep doing it.
And we bear fruit. There are works of the flesh and there is fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:19–23), and a branch bears nothing on its own — only what stays connected bears anything at all (John 15:4).
When we make room and then plant seed in it, fruit comes. And we start to look like our Father.
Last night there was a war cry. Then there was victory — in the physical and in the spiritual, in that room, in those hours.
Because praise is not decoration. “Now when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushes” (2 Chronicles 20:22). “At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God… suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed” (Acts 16:25–26).
Praise changes things. Praise breaks things.
And now I believe the Lord is saying: it’s time to put on the armor.
The warfare was always happening. What’s changing is that He’s about to show us how to stand in it.
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil… Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” — Ephesians 6:11, 13
Every piece is defensive except one. And the word He repeats four times is not charge. It’s stand.
When you have the armor on, what touches you touches God first.
Read the Word. Fast. Pray. Stay connected to other believers. Get a routine. Get a discipline.
And hear me on this one, because I’ve tried the other way and it doesn’t work: it can’t just be the morning.
I tried doing it in the morning and then going about my life. It doesn’t work.
It has to be a continual conversation. If you have a husband or a wife, you don’t talk to them at breakfast and then again at bedtime and call that a marriage. You talk to them in between.
That’s the whole thing right there.
There was a season where I was living with the Lord — going to church, knowing the words — and I was still giving myself to other things.
Looking back, I know exactly what that was. I was married to Him and committing adultery.
“Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” — James 4:4
And here’s what I found out: He had my back that whole time anyway.
That’s where the boldness comes from. That’s where the radical comes from. Not from a stage — from knowing what He did for me, and knowing who my Father is, and how much He loves me.
Me and Quella praise the same way in an empty church with just our kids as we did in that room Monday night. Nothing about last night was new. You just got to see it.
Now put on the armor.
Ready for the next one?
Encountered. Changed. Sent.