Toking the Ghost: Why Christians Must Redeem Drug Culture, Part II
The past few decades, with moves such as Toronto and others, people are truly beginning to grasp that the New Wine of God’s Spirit is not just to be discussed or analyzed, but to be drunk. The Lord has always sought, throughout the scriptures, to relay the concept that we are to be entranced on Him. God has always used wine as a typology of His celebratory nature. He says in Ephesians 5:18:
“And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit …” (NKJV).
Obviously, most believers know we are not to be drunk with natural wine. But nevertheless, the Lord correlates a spiritual experience to the buzz derived from alcohol. Why would God make such a comparison? Alcoholic drunkenness is off limits – yet God uses it as an analogy, to point us to the real drunkenness He desires. His goal is to turn us away from the false, in order to turn us toward the true. Just as God correlates the real to the illegal counterfeit in the passage above, so do we correlate drug use (also off limits) in a similar analogy. Realize that the issue has nothing to do with drugs, alcohol or pink elephants. It has to do with spiritual intoxication. The package is irrelevant here, so we may as well get over it. God is going to be ripping up a lot of religious packages in these days, in order to express Himself to a generation.
Don’t let religion feed you water, when God offers to turn it into wine. We have found that using street drug language has a great shock effect, because people will instantly make the correlation to how extreme and radical God wants us to experience Him, to be reliant on Him (abandoned addiction to Him), and to be pulled into exotic spiritual experiences with Him daily. Maybe you have never had daily encounter with God. Maybe you’ve been a Christian for decades, but never believed He was so close as to intersect your daily life on a regular basis. Don’t let your past experience dictate the standard God has for you. Take a puff. He died so that you can encounter Heaven continually in unbroken communion. How do we access this? By simply believing – by faith. How do we drink of Him? How do we toke Him up? By faith. Need more faith? Take a puff.
Addicts Set Free from Drugs and Prostitution!
I am always excited to see the fruit of “Toking the Ghost” in the lives of ordinary people, who get freed up by encountering Jesus this way. We get simple testimonies like this one emailed to us all the time:
“It was awesome you came to me and asked me if I wanted to get high and then you blew on me and I passed out. I have not been the same since thank you.” – Ricky S., Cave City, Kentucky.
If that testimony sounds tame, consider this one: after an outreach we did in Canada, multiple prostitutes gave their lives to Jesus. What impacted their decision? Oddly enough, it was largely influenced by getting high on the Most High:
“Two young female prostitutes/addicts are safely in a Christian detox center in another city and after 28 days will be in Montreal at Safe Haven for 2-3 years. A third female is being looked after. A male escort is now at Harvest House and a pimp is on the verge of salvation. One of the persons was native. … Confidentiality must be strictly observed. All of our lives at risk and there are many (illicit sex) clients who go to church. Church is not always a safe place for testimonies. One (prostitute) had 12 clients at one of the largest spirit-filled churches in the Maritimes. A deaf ear popped open and a woman who had internal damage during childbirth, bone problems and great pain was instantly healed (at the meetings). (One of the) things that brought tears to all the prostitutes and touched them the most were … when John Crowder took some arms on front row and pretended he was shooting them up but it was with the Holy Ghost not a substance – they all went wild when they saw how much fun Christianity could be!” – Anonymous, Nova Scotia, Canada
We also hear regularly of people whose drug addictions were broken – not by going into a program, but by finding a better substance! They encountered the substance of Heaven:
“One year ago I was asked to leave the only church I ever felt like I fit because I confessed that I was struggling to stay free from pot smoking. … Then I attended a conference in Harrisburg where John Crowder whacked me on my head and later (Yes, I went back for more) injected me in the arm with the Holy Ghost. I have been wasted since. I realized ...Oh Lord! There is no way I can ever go back to smoking now. This is so much better and free! Thank you for your peculiar example. (I have) been enlightened. … Suddenly joy is oozing out of my pores! The wonderful thing is Holy Spirit said I caught it – I am infected with a move beyond any move. There is a wide spread epidemic of joy being released. People are going to catch a joy buzz everywhere I go … and lately I seem to be walking around just on the brink of laughter. … The epidemic is spreading! People are filled with joy every where you go there are smiling faces. It becomes common to be standing in the check-out line and hear spontaneous laughter. Wow! Life is good! The whole region is now being transformed. We are having street parties shouting “Jesus is Lord and oh so good!” … Put down your needle! Intoxication is free! And better than any concoction ever put together by man. Whoooohooo! People are getting saved all over the country because these courageous, infected-beyond-repair victims are completely caught up in love with Jesus. Suddenly everyone wants Him!” – Sharon C., Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Drunkenness Sets School in Chaos
One of my favorite testimonies we have received was from a young, 17-year-old Dutch girl who reports that her drunken behavior set her entire school in a glorious uproar. Persecuted by teachers, counselors and peers, she stayed faithful to the whack of God, and thus set everyone talking and being exposed to the workings of God:
“I’m a 17-year old girl from the Netherlands and me and my friends are experiencing 'strange' things at our school. That Friday that John had a conference in Holland, I was at school and suddenly I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me. … I went out of the classroom and sat down somewhere in the hall. … My whole body shook and I fell to the floor, God was really doing something. After a while (my friend) Samantha would go and tell the teacher what was happening, because we were away for a long time already. So the class didn't know what to think and when Samantha went back to us again, another Christian began to explain to the people what was going on. At the moment she began to speak a wind was going trough the classroom, when she stopped the wind was gone. When she began again the wind was there again. A girl who doesn't believe in God felt the wind at first and she said that that wasn't just normal. I was still on the ground shaking when the class was over and then the teacher and two other Christians came to have a look. He asked if we would like to explain it all to the class in one of his lessons.
“After he was gone another teacher came (I don't know how you call it in English but they both teach in religion and stuff). He wanted us to come into his office. So they had to pick me up from the floor and help me get into his office. But when we were there he began saying that I should 'get out of it' and that I had to do this in my own time, because we were at school. … I was still shaking at the front of the school, where all the people were because it was lunch break.
“After that I went home and that night I was in the conference where John was speaking and it was just so cool, because he was acting as weird as I had done that day! And again God was doing something in me. That whole weekend God was there and I was really drunk all the time, it was so funny! I have learned much from John, and I can't even count the number of how many times I fell on the floor because God was doing something so powerful. But the Monday after that weekend God hadn't stopped his work, so I was drunk all the time even in classes! As a result of that teachers now worry about me; my mentor phoned home and my parents have to come to school and talk with her. … Students and people who aren't even at this school talk about it. … So there really is chaos and we're at a point where we don't know what to do next.” – Chayah V., Netherlands
All it takes are a few drunken warriors with a boldness to let God break out in their midst, even when it is unexplainable. A few people like this in His hands can awaken entire regions.
Maybe you have gone to church for years, but have never been floored by the immediate, tangible presence of the Holy Spirit. I would like to encourage you that God can swoop right into your circumstance and bring you a radical, addictive overhaul in one moment of your life. He did it for me, and He does it for many others. I will share one more testimony of someone who was altered by a heavy-duty Jesus fix:
“I just want you to know that I have acquired a brand new Holy Spirit addiction. I got all the prayer at the conference and then stayed for Sunday service. … I was a Holy Spirit seeker and now am a Holy Spirit addict. … They scraped me off the floor and I was so drunk in the Spirit. That has never happened to me before. I had a 3-hour drive ahead of me and they put me in the car and I laughed and prayed (yelled/warred) in tongues for more than an hour of it. Thank God I made it because I was so completely fried. I even acquired new tongues, either a new language or more of the one I already had. I went straight from Kenosha to a meeting at my own church and since it is pretty much a seeker friendly church, I was not sure how my condition was going to go over, but I didn't really care that much. I got a lot of favor and one man told me today that when he saw me on Sunday, I was glowing. … It's great! You were so right. In that condition, I don't care about anything. I can do so much more this way because I don't care what people think of me. It's awesome! All I want is God and more God! Nothing else matters. Hey I even came home feeling love for my son-in-law who has been quite a thorn in my side. Today I took a prayer drive around the perimeter of my town and heard God directing my prayer for this town really clearly. Thank you for sharing! This is amazing!” – Paulette M., Kenosha, Wisconsin
Prepare to be stretched, because God is releasing His kingdom in some radical new expressions in this hour. Let us trust Him and enjoy the flow of this new move!
“And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit …” (NKJV).
Obviously, most believers know we are not to be drunk with natural wine. But nevertheless, the Lord correlates a spiritual experience to the buzz derived from alcohol. Why would God make such a comparison? Alcoholic drunkenness is off limits – yet God uses it as an analogy, to point us to the real drunkenness He desires. His goal is to turn us away from the false, in order to turn us toward the true. Just as God correlates the real to the illegal counterfeit in the passage above, so do we correlate drug use (also off limits) in a similar analogy. Realize that the issue has nothing to do with drugs, alcohol or pink elephants. It has to do with spiritual intoxication. The package is irrelevant here, so we may as well get over it. God is going to be ripping up a lot of religious packages in these days, in order to express Himself to a generation.
Don’t let religion feed you water, when God offers to turn it into wine. We have found that using street drug language has a great shock effect, because people will instantly make the correlation to how extreme and radical God wants us to experience Him, to be reliant on Him (abandoned addiction to Him), and to be pulled into exotic spiritual experiences with Him daily. Maybe you have never had daily encounter with God. Maybe you’ve been a Christian for decades, but never believed He was so close as to intersect your daily life on a regular basis. Don’t let your past experience dictate the standard God has for you. Take a puff. He died so that you can encounter Heaven continually in unbroken communion. How do we access this? By simply believing – by faith. How do we drink of Him? How do we toke Him up? By faith. Need more faith? Take a puff.
Addicts Set Free from Drugs and Prostitution!
I am always excited to see the fruit of “Toking the Ghost” in the lives of ordinary people, who get freed up by encountering Jesus this way. We get simple testimonies like this one emailed to us all the time:
“It was awesome you came to me and asked me if I wanted to get high and then you blew on me and I passed out. I have not been the same since thank you.” – Ricky S., Cave City, Kentucky.
If that testimony sounds tame, consider this one: after an outreach we did in Canada, multiple prostitutes gave their lives to Jesus. What impacted their decision? Oddly enough, it was largely influenced by getting high on the Most High:
“Two young female prostitutes/addicts are safely in a Christian detox center in another city and after 28 days will be in Montreal at Safe Haven for 2-3 years. A third female is being looked after. A male escort is now at Harvest House and a pimp is on the verge of salvation. One of the persons was native. … Confidentiality must be strictly observed. All of our lives at risk and there are many (illicit sex) clients who go to church. Church is not always a safe place for testimonies. One (prostitute) had 12 clients at one of the largest spirit-filled churches in the Maritimes. A deaf ear popped open and a woman who had internal damage during childbirth, bone problems and great pain was instantly healed (at the meetings). (One of the) things that brought tears to all the prostitutes and touched them the most were … when John Crowder took some arms on front row and pretended he was shooting them up but it was with the Holy Ghost not a substance – they all went wild when they saw how much fun Christianity could be!” – Anonymous, Nova Scotia, Canada
We also hear regularly of people whose drug addictions were broken – not by going into a program, but by finding a better substance! They encountered the substance of Heaven:
“One year ago I was asked to leave the only church I ever felt like I fit because I confessed that I was struggling to stay free from pot smoking. … Then I attended a conference in Harrisburg where John Crowder whacked me on my head and later (Yes, I went back for more) injected me in the arm with the Holy Ghost. I have been wasted since. I realized ...Oh Lord! There is no way I can ever go back to smoking now. This is so much better and free! Thank you for your peculiar example. (I have) been enlightened. … Suddenly joy is oozing out of my pores! The wonderful thing is Holy Spirit said I caught it – I am infected with a move beyond any move. There is a wide spread epidemic of joy being released. People are going to catch a joy buzz everywhere I go … and lately I seem to be walking around just on the brink of laughter. … The epidemic is spreading! People are filled with joy every where you go there are smiling faces. It becomes common to be standing in the check-out line and hear spontaneous laughter. Wow! Life is good! The whole region is now being transformed. We are having street parties shouting “Jesus is Lord and oh so good!” … Put down your needle! Intoxication is free! And better than any concoction ever put together by man. Whoooohooo! People are getting saved all over the country because these courageous, infected-beyond-repair victims are completely caught up in love with Jesus. Suddenly everyone wants Him!” – Sharon C., Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Drunkenness Sets School in Chaos
One of my favorite testimonies we have received was from a young, 17-year-old Dutch girl who reports that her drunken behavior set her entire school in a glorious uproar. Persecuted by teachers, counselors and peers, she stayed faithful to the whack of God, and thus set everyone talking and being exposed to the workings of God:
“I’m a 17-year old girl from the Netherlands and me and my friends are experiencing 'strange' things at our school. That Friday that John had a conference in Holland, I was at school and suddenly I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me. … I went out of the classroom and sat down somewhere in the hall. … My whole body shook and I fell to the floor, God was really doing something. After a while (my friend) Samantha would go and tell the teacher what was happening, because we were away for a long time already. So the class didn't know what to think and when Samantha went back to us again, another Christian began to explain to the people what was going on. At the moment she began to speak a wind was going trough the classroom, when she stopped the wind was gone. When she began again the wind was there again. A girl who doesn't believe in God felt the wind at first and she said that that wasn't just normal. I was still on the ground shaking when the class was over and then the teacher and two other Christians came to have a look. He asked if we would like to explain it all to the class in one of his lessons.
“After he was gone another teacher came (I don't know how you call it in English but they both teach in religion and stuff). He wanted us to come into his office. So they had to pick me up from the floor and help me get into his office. But when we were there he began saying that I should 'get out of it' and that I had to do this in my own time, because we were at school. … I was still shaking at the front of the school, where all the people were because it was lunch break.
“After that I went home and that night I was in the conference where John was speaking and it was just so cool, because he was acting as weird as I had done that day! And again God was doing something in me. That whole weekend God was there and I was really drunk all the time, it was so funny! I have learned much from John, and I can't even count the number of how many times I fell on the floor because God was doing something so powerful. But the Monday after that weekend God hadn't stopped his work, so I was drunk all the time even in classes! As a result of that teachers now worry about me; my mentor phoned home and my parents have to come to school and talk with her. … Students and people who aren't even at this school talk about it. … So there really is chaos and we're at a point where we don't know what to do next.” – Chayah V., Netherlands
All it takes are a few drunken warriors with a boldness to let God break out in their midst, even when it is unexplainable. A few people like this in His hands can awaken entire regions.
Maybe you have gone to church for years, but have never been floored by the immediate, tangible presence of the Holy Spirit. I would like to encourage you that God can swoop right into your circumstance and bring you a radical, addictive overhaul in one moment of your life. He did it for me, and He does it for many others. I will share one more testimony of someone who was altered by a heavy-duty Jesus fix:
“I just want you to know that I have acquired a brand new Holy Spirit addiction. I got all the prayer at the conference and then stayed for Sunday service. … I was a Holy Spirit seeker and now am a Holy Spirit addict. … They scraped me off the floor and I was so drunk in the Spirit. That has never happened to me before. I had a 3-hour drive ahead of me and they put me in the car and I laughed and prayed (yelled/warred) in tongues for more than an hour of it. Thank God I made it because I was so completely fried. I even acquired new tongues, either a new language or more of the one I already had. I went straight from Kenosha to a meeting at my own church and since it is pretty much a seeker friendly church, I was not sure how my condition was going to go over, but I didn't really care that much. I got a lot of favor and one man told me today that when he saw me on Sunday, I was glowing. … It's great! You were so right. In that condition, I don't care about anything. I can do so much more this way because I don't care what people think of me. It's awesome! All I want is God and more God! Nothing else matters. Hey I even came home feeling love for my son-in-law who has been quite a thorn in my side. Today I took a prayer drive around the perimeter of my town and heard God directing my prayer for this town really clearly. Thank you for sharing! This is amazing!” – Paulette M., Kenosha, Wisconsin
Prepare to be stretched, because God is releasing His kingdom in some radical new expressions in this hour. Let us trust Him and enjoy the flow of this new move!
posted by John Crowder at 1:48 AM
2 Comments:
Good Stuff John!
I am so glad I finally found out about this stuff. It is so hard to seek ethe Lord's presence without this revealtion. Thank you so much God for flowing out your fun and freedom in these last days...where sin abounds, grace abounds more!!!!
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