Unveiling the Jewish Roots of Pentecost

May 22, 2026May 22, 2026 / Fire Starter for Jesus / Leave a comment

Me: Welcome to Fire Starter for Jesus!

Rabbi Hylan is with us today to help us understand more about how the Old Testament foreshadows Jesus Christ and how the Old Testament and the New Testament connect. Rabbi Hylan pastored a messianic congregation in Western Washington for many years. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject. Rabbi Hylan, could you please introduce yourself to the people before we start talking about Pentecost?

Rabbi Hylan: Sure.

So, I’m assuming you have primarily a Christian audience. But who knows, someone may tune in, maybe even a Jewish person who may want to learn about the Jewish roots of the faith.

I was raised in a Jewish home and met my wife in 1967. We got married in 1968. We set off on a journey to find truth. We thought we’d find it in India. We joined an ashram. I wore a turban. We were initiated into transcendental meditation.

On the way to India, we ended up at a Christian community called Labri with Francis and Edith Schaefer. That’s where we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Later we began to call him Yeshua, which is his Hebrew name. That’s maybe another podcast.

Then we backpacked for two years in 15 countries, spent a year in Israel, came back to the states and (this was 1973), got involved in a Jesus movement, and a charismatic revival church in Northern California. That’s where I was eventually licensed and ordained, in 1978 and 1980 respectively.

I went full-time in 1982 and just retired a couple years ago after becoming a pastor for 16 years, and then becoming a messianic rabbi in Newcastle, Washington for 27 years. So that’s the lifetime.

Me: Oh, thank you. Okay. Now, on to Pentecost.

Rabbi, after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, before he ascended to heaven, he told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. The New Testament of the Bible tells us that power came on Pentecost, but I don’t see the word “Pentecost” used in the Old Testament. What is Pentecost? And do you know where that word came from?

Rabbi Hylan: I’m glad you asked! What’s interesting about this specific holiday (there’s a lot I could share) Primarily the Christian church over the years has rejected its Jewish roots.

Now almost everybody knows that Jesus was Jewish.

All the apostles were Jewish. Peter, James (whose name was Yakov or Jacob in the original), all the apostles, all the writers of the Old and New Testament were Jewish, save possibly Luke. We don’t know. He could have been a proselyte, a convert to Judaism. We’re not positive, but he definitely understood the Jewishness of the gospel.

The church has lost a lot of its depth and meaning by the anti-Semitism that was established in the early church. The early church fathers (I’m thinking early – Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius, Aranius, then later Augustine, John Chrisostum) were all anti-Semites, which is hard for a lot of Christians to grasp and even receive. But that’s true. So, a lot of anti-Jewish things occurred in the early church, and throughout the centuries. That’s another podcast or another discussion, because that’s not really what we want to talk about today. But that’s the root of why I want to share today about Shavuot or Pentecost.

So, this holiday… (You can stop me anytime, ask me questions. Of course, this is your podcast. I’m your guest.) This holiday of Shavuot…

“Shavuot” is a word for weeks in Hebrew. Weeks, because it’s 7 weeks plus 1 day after the Sabbath of Passover. So, we get 50 days from Passover. Seven weeks = 49 plus 1. Which is why we call it Pentecost. The word for 50th in the Greek is “Pentecost.”

Shavout is 50 days from Passover, which is why we call it Pentecost.
The word for 50th in the Greek is “Pentecost.

So, it’s a very important date in God’s prophetic calendar.

Let me begin by reading something from Leviticus 23. This is where we get the foundation for this specific holiday that became known as Pentecost.

So, Leviticus 23, the first couple verses says this. “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, the Lord’s appointed times, which you shall proclaim as holy assemblies. My appointed times are these.’ “

It doesn’t say, “These are the Jewish holidays or the festivals of Israel.” It says these are God’s “appointed times”

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So, what’s interesting about these first two verses: it doesn’t say, “These are the Jewish holidays or the festivals of Israel.” It says these are God’s “appointed times” (the Lord’s appointed times is “Moed” in Hebrew). They are to be holy assemblies or holy convocations. Then God goes into these appointed times. One of them, in verse 15, is the feast of weeks.

“You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath of Passover. From the day when you brought in the sheath of the wave offering, there shall be seven complete Sabbaths, you shall count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord.”

Okay, so we begin counting (50 days) the day after the Sabbath of Passover (The Sabbath would have been the seventh day of the week, the last day). The day after the Sabbath is the first day of the week, which we would equate to Sunday.

Biblical days were from sundown to sundown which is another point. Why in the world would someone start counting a day at midnight, right? At midnight one day ends, another day begins? Most people in the world throughout history were sleeping. But God said when the sun goes down, one day ends and another day begins. It makes so much sense to me!

If we fast forward, from Leviticus 23, roughly 1300 years we get to the first century. What happened the day after the Sabbath of Passover in Matthew 28? Well, let me pull that up for you.

Matthew 28:1 says, “Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it, and his appearance was like lightning, and his garment as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. And the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, just as he said.’”

After the Sabbath ended, it began to dawn the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. The grave was empty. Jesus had risen from the dead. When? On the first day of the counting. The 50-day count began on Resurrection Day and it ended on Shavout (the Feast of Weeks, or the feast of seven weeks plus one, later to be referred to as Pentecost in the church community). So, that’s the history.

What’s interesting is that biblical holidays have specific months and days on the calendar. But Shavuot doesn’t. It’s the only one that doesn’t have a specific month and day, because it’s directly connected to Passover. You count from the day after the Sabbath of Passover, 49 days plus one. So why is this important? Because Pentecost could be considered the fulfillment of Passover, or you could consider it the completion of the resurrection.

Now, in agricultural terms, this 50-day time period was when farmers were anticipating their ripening crops, the ripening grain, hoping and praying for an abundant harvest. Now, this plays right into Acts Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

So, what was Passover about? Passover was about, well, a lot of things. The Jewish people were slaves 400 years in Egypt. So, freedom from slavery. Passover was about God’s authority over idols and the gods of men. Some of your listeners might know that every plague of the 10 plagues… The Egyptian people worshiped and served those gods. The god of the Nile; the god of lice; the god of frogs; Ra, the god of the sun. All these plagues defeated idols of the Egyptians. So, Passover was about God’s authority over idols.

Passover was about deliverance from persecution and oppression by the enemy. Passover was about God’s provision in the wilderness for 40 years, daily manna, daily bread, and so much more. And ultimately, Passover was about the possession of the land that God had promised to Abraham generations before. So, coming out of Egypt, the first Shavout, or Pentecost, was during the first week of the month of Sivan which was the third month of the biblical calendar. I don’t want to get too technical for your listeners, but let’s look at what happened on the third day of Sivan in Exodus 19. So, I’m going to turn to Exodus 19 in my Bible. the second book of the Bible, Exodus 19.

We read this in verse one: “In the third month, after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. (So, this is important because this is this is the time of Shavout, later known as Pentecost.) So it came about on the third day when it was morning that there was thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud shofar sound so that all the people who were in the camp trembled and Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they stood at the foot of the mountain.”

I could go on but your people can read it later.

This is the story of God appearing on Mount Sinai giving the ten commandments. By the way, they’re not called commandments in scripture. They’re just called the 10 words. And this incredible scene took place.

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Then in Chapter 20:1 it says, “Then God spoke all these words to the people and they heard a voice coming from the mountain and it was God speaking.”

That’s why they said to Moses, “Moses, you go up. We don’t want to get near that place.”

So, only two months before, they were slaves in Egypt. They were delivered from 400 years of slavery and now they were free. But how do you live as free people? They’d been slaves for so long. They were not a nation. They were slaves and they didn’t rest.

By the way, the sign of the covenant that God made with Moses in the wilderness; the sign of the covenant was the Sabbath, the Shabbat, the Sabbath day. Why?

By the way, the sign of the covenant that God made with Moses in the wilderness;
the sign of the covenant was the Sabbath, the Shabbat, the Sabbath day.
Why? Because slaves don’t rest.

Because slaves don’t rest. So, this was very specific. So, how do you function as a nation, as a free nation? The new nation needed boundaries. They needed a way to define their freedom, right? Because freedom without boundaries is tyranny.

So, God gave them 10 foundational principles, his instruction, his teaching.

By the way, the word “Torah” in scripture is normally translated “law.” But “law” is not a good translation of the word Torah. The Hebrew word “Torah” in English means “instruction or teaching,” not “law.” It’s a very different feel, if you look at it that way.

We don’t want to reject God’s instructions. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, he did not come to abolish the Torah. (It says law, right?) He did not come to abolish the Torah (or the prophets), to teach his own instructions, but that they might be fulfilled in him.

So, if we reject the Torah or the law, we have to reject the creation story. We have to reject Noah and the flood, Abraham, all kinds of stuff, and the ten commandments. So, if Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Torah (his instruction), but that they might be fulfilled in him, then what is it about the Torah that we need to keep? And that’s a huge discussion.

I just want to say that in Exodus 32, (this is the story of the golden calf when Moses went up on the mountain to intercede for the people), he came down and Aaron had made a golden calf. When Moses approached Aaron, he said, “Aaron, why did you do this?” Aaron says, “Well, the people made me do it.”

Yeah, right, Aaron. Like he had no volition in this creation.

But Moses comes down. He was so grieved by the idolatry of his kinsmen that he actually offered his own life to sacrifice for God, if God would spare them and forgive their sin. But God said, “I will punish them for their sin.” And 3,000 people died.

Well, what happened in Acts Chapter 2?

So, now I’m going to jump ahead to Acts Chapter 2 again. Remember I just mentioned that in the wilderness 3,000 died because of their rebellion. Now we see in Acts 2:40 “with many other words Peter solemnly testified and kept on exhorting the Jewish people saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation.’ So, those who had received his word were baptized and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.”

Now, to me, this is no coincidence. In Exodus 32, three thousand died for rejecting God’s word. In Acts 2 on Pentecost, 1300 years later, three thousand were born again after receiving God’s word.

This is one of the mysteries of God. People say, “Oh, 3,000 people were killed. God must be mean and angry.”

Then 3,000 come into the kingdom. There’s a much bigger story taking place here. You know, a day is but a thousand years to the Lord. A thousand years is but a day. And we put so much stock in these 70, 80, 90 years that we’re alive on this earth, but really, it’s a blink. It’s a vapor. It’s temporary. But we’re going to live forever and spend eternity with God.

So, I don’t know when this podcast is going to be aired, but Pentecost Sunday in 2026, is May 24th.

Pentecost Sunday in 2026, is May 24th.

For me, it’s a really important day. Of course, I’m a Jewish believer. But for many churches, maybe the majority, they don’t do anything on Pentecost Sunday. They just say, “Well this is Pentecost Sunday,” and they preach on something else, or do something else. But to me it’s such a big deal because it’s the fulfillment of Acts Chapter 2.

Most people say the church began in Acts Chapter 2 on Pentecost. I don’t say that. Maybe you do. People ask me, “When did the church begin?” I say, well, it began in Genesis 12 when God called Abraham out of the Chaldeans and he said, I will bless those who bless you and he who curses you I will curse and through you, Abraham, through your seed many families of the earth will be blessed.

God’s covenant that he made with Abram at the time was land and people.

He’s going to give him a specific piece of real estate which is currently the nation of Israel. But then it included from the river in Egypt to the Euphrates. So that includes all the Sinai desert, Jordan, parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq (because the Euphrates is in Iraq), and maybe a bunch of Saudi Arabia. That was the land that God gave to Abram.

So, the church began when God made a covenant with Abram. It says in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

It says in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
The Apostle Paul

Now, not heirs according to blood, because there’s physical descendants of Abraham like me. Then there’s spiritual descendants, like you; Christians who’ve accepted this covenant. So, Pentecost is important, Jewish roots are important, and the church began, I believe, in Genesis 12. We see it being fulfilled, God’s plan throughout history.

Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, 50 days after the Resurrection, definitely was a hallmark, and a huge springboard for the church. The church took-off because thousands got saved. Three thousand on that day and then maybe a few days or a few weeks later, another 5,000 and the church was growing like crazy. Some estimates say that there were 100,000 Jewish believers in the early church before it was even called the church. You know, the early believers were all Jewish up until Acts Chapter 10, the first recorded gentile, Cornelius gets saved.

So, depending on which historian you talk to, from Acts 1 to Acts 10 is anywhere from 10 to 27 years, and there were no Gentiles. They were all Jews celebrating, worshiping Yeshua. Their Messiah, had come. He was filling them with his Holy Spirit and they were spreading the gospel. The church was growing and it was quite a phenomenal time until 70 AD, when the Romans decided, “We’re going to squelch this opposition.”

The rest is history. That’s my monologue.

Me: Okay, I have been reading from Leviticus 23 about the Feast of Weeks and what the Jewish people were instructed to do back then. Something about two loaves of bread, seven lambs, a bull, two rams, a drink offering, and then a male goat. There’s a lot of different offerings being talked about for the original Pentecost. So, the priests had two loaves of bread. They waved them or something. Do you have any idea?

Rabbi Hylan: Yes, the first harvest is the barley harvest. That was celebrated right after Passover. It’s called “The Feast of First Fruits” or “Bikkurim.” That’s also in Leviticus 23. Since you’re there, let me turn to Leviticus 23 again.

So in Leviticus 23:9, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheath of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest, he shall wave the sheath before the Lord and for you to be accepted on the day after the Sabbath.’ The priest shall wave it.’”

This is again the day after the Sabbath of Passover that became Resurrection Day. And to me for Christians this should be so important and so exciting. They would take the first fruits of the barley harvest. While the barley was ripening, the priest would go into the barley field. He would find the barley that was ripening earliest and he would wrap a ribbon around that stack or stalks of barley.

Later, when he goes out to harvest, he could pick the first fruits, the ones that ripened first. Then they would wave that barley as a wave offering, saying, “God, thank you so much for providing the early harvest.”

Well, I mentioned earlier, during the 50-day count from this day to Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks, 49 days plus one) the wheat harvest was ripening. After the wheat harvest, they would grind the wheat berries and make bread. Then they would wave two loaves of bread before the Lord and thank God. “Thank you for the late harvest, the second harvest.”

There’re different interpretations of why the two loaves. To me as a Jewish believer, that’s a picture of the Jew and Gentile. That’s the one new man. Think about that.

They would wave two loaves of bread before the Lord and thank God….
That’s the one new man. Think about that.

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Me: Yeah, I see that.

Rabbi Hylan: That’s the one new man, Jews and gentiles together as Paul talks about in Ephesians 2. According to Ephesians 2, the Jew doesn’t join the church. The Gentile joins the nation of Israel. That’s another discussion.

You can see in Ephesians 3 a mystery that’s been revealed; that Gentiles can now be part of the kingdom of God.

What happened over the centuries? Gentiles became arrogant. It’s just what Paul warned against in Romans 11. Gentiles became jealous, disillusioned, and deceived. I think it’s because the church began to believe the Jews killed Jesus. They called it “deicide,” the killing of God. And that’s why there was so much anti-Semitism, so much hatred toward the Jewish people.

But nobody killed Jesus. He offered his life freely as sacrifice. In fact, he said he could call down legions of angels to save him if he needed to. Peter, in the garden, cut the ear off a Roman guard. So, this whole idea that the Jews killed Jesus is bogus. It’s error. But that idea became ingrained in the early church.

Me: The Romans were as responsible for that as the Jews, maybe more so, because…

Rabbi Hylan: Yeah, but the Romans didn’t kill Jesus either! I mean, technically Jesus freely gave his life as a lamb led to slaughter. It was his choice. He could have stopped the whole thing if he wanted to.

Me: Right. He could have. Yeah, that’s true.

Rabbi Hylan: Yeah. So, Gentiles join the commonwealth of Israel. In Ephesians 3 it also says, “the household of faith.” Then in Ephesians 3, Paul says, “Now this is the mystery revealed.” He says it so clearly.

Paul says in Ephesians 3, “By revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief. And by referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and the prophets in the spirit.” And to be specific, here we go. “That the Gentiles are fellows and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel of which I was made a minister according to the grace of God.” So, so that’s another interesting perspective. That is a reason why this podcast is important, a reason why Christians’ understanding their Jewish roots are so important.

Part Two

Me: We are picking this up a few days later and continuing our conversation about how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament and how Jesus is foreshadowed by the spring feasts.

So, Rabbi, good to see you again. Could you help us understand how the Abrahamic covenant, which you talked about a lot in the first part of our interview; how that relates to the new covenant?

Rabbi Hylan: Well, that’s a really good question. What I really appreciate about you and what you’re doing here is you’re connecting the big picture. Most Christians (I would say most. I don’t know what the percentage is, but it’s a huge majority of Bible believing Christians), don’t really understand the Jewish roots of their faith.

They quote the Old Testament. They love the Old Testament. And they understand how important the creation story is, and Noah and the flood, and Abraham (We’re going to get to Abraham in a minute), and the whole history of Israel.

But when it comes to the church, all that previous history to the average Christian is insignificant, except for some historic value. I would say they don’t get the spiritual value and impact that understanding the Jewish roots of the Christian faith really has for us as believers. It’s not a salvation issue because we are saved by grace through faith plus nothing. But it’s an understanding of how we walk out our faith and how we can grasp God’s picture, the big picture that God created, 3,500 years ago basically.

So, you ask about the Abrahamic covenant, and you can interrupt me at any time, ask questions. Of course, this is your podcast.

So, the Abrahamic covenant was actually a covenant that God made with Abram in Genesis 12. It started in Genesis 12 where God said to Abram, (“Avram” in Hebrew, the B is actually a V sound in Hebrew, “Avram.” If you want a Hebrew lesson, the R is rolled where you gargle. So, it’s “Arvam.” Anyway, I’ll call him “Abram,” for most of your people will feel better about that.

Later, God changed his name from Abram to Abraham; from the father of many to, the father of a multitude. So, in Genesis 12, God tells him to leave Ur of the Chaldeans, and I will send you to a place and that you know not of. So, Abram believed God.

Later we see, I think in Genesis Chapter 17, he believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (which the apostle Paul, also … refers to in Romans 4 if I’m not mistaken). Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.

So, because Abram believed, God makes a covenant with him. He says, “I will bless those who bless you and he who curses you I will curse, and in you, Abram, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

That’s quite an amazing promise, right? How could that be? I mean, Abram didn’t have any children. Yet, He’s going to use this man to bless all the families of the earth. Now we understand, fast forward, that the Messiah is going to come through Abraham’s loins, right? Therefore, every family could be blessed through the loins of Abram.

So, what was his covenant? The covenant was twofold. Covenant God promised, I will give you seed or descendants, offspring that will be like the stars in the universe. If you can count the stars, that’s how many offspring you’ll have. That’s in Genesis 12. Then later, God says it’ll also be like the sand of the seashore. If you can count the sand of the seashore, that’s how many descendants you’ll have. Now, I don’t know if anybody’s ever tried to do that; it might be an impossible task. But that was the covenant.

The sign of the covenant was circumcision. This was going to be the sign that set Abraham’s offspring apart from everyone else in the world, from all the Gentiles.

The sign of the Abrahamic covenant was circumcision.

Okay. So, how does that covenant relate to the New Covenant for Christians? Well, … what is the new covenant? Now, this is another, really interesting discussion, and it connects to Passover. One of the questions you wanted to ask me a little bit later is how do the festivals of Israel have impact for Christian today? Well, in every way is the answer.

So, when Yeshua (Jesus), was celebrating the last supper…. I would say most Christians know that was a Passover meal, what we call a seder, the Passover seder. But they don’t really get the significance and the history.

Okay, it’s Passover. Big deal. We (Gentile Christians) don’t celebrate Passover, but Jesus did. This is the last supper. The last supper was the last meal Jesus had with his disciples. It was where he said that one of them would betray him.

He washes their feet at the last supper. He talks about the lamb of God. Then he tells them he’s going to be betrayed. From the last supper he goes to the Mount of Olives and that’s when he’s betrayed by Judas.

At that Passover seder, Yeshua said something very important. Now, there’s four cups of wine that are taken during the Passover seder. The third cup is called the cup of redemption. Jesus (Yeshua) picked up this cup and he said, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.”

Jesus (Yeshua) picked up this cup and he said,
“This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.”

Now, I wish I were a little birdie on the shoulder of one of the apostles at that last Passover because when he said, “New Covenant,” their eyes must have gotten wide. There’s only one place in the entire Bible… the only Bible they had was the Old Testament at the time.

By the way, I call it the Old Testament and the New Testament for the sake of most of your audience. However, none of the apostles, not Jesus, no one called it, “the Old Testament.” It was “The Hebrew Scriptures”. It was, “The Word of God,” the only word they had because the New Testament hadn’t been written yet. And I don’t like calling it, “The Old Testament,” because that came about in the 4th Century with Jerome, when he translated the Greek Bible into Latin, He started referring to the Old Testament and the New Testament. I just like calling it, “The Hebrew Scriptures” and “The Greek Scriptures” and “The Bible.”

Anyway, there’s only one place in the entire Hebrew Scriptures where the phrase “New Covenant” appears. So, when Jesus (Yeshua) said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood,” all the disciples would have thought about Jeremiah 31. Now, why is that?

Every Jew knew about the covenants, because God is a covenant-keeping God.

Every Jew knew about the covenants, because God is a covenant-keeping God. They knew about the covenant God made with Abram. Even before that, the covenant God made with Noah when he said, “I will no longer destroy the earth by flood” and “the sign of the covenant is the rainbow.”

Every Jew knew about Noah and the ark and the covenant. Every Jew knew about the covenant God made with Abram in Genesis 12. That’s their covenant: “I will bless those who bless you. He who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

And the sign of the covenant was circumcision.

The sign of the covenant God made with Abraham was circumcision.

God’s promise was descendants and land. A specific piece of real estate which was currently known as Israel, but much larger. The covenant was people, descendants, seed, and land (a piece of real estate from the river in Egypt, to the Euphrates up somewhere in Lebanon, down into Saudi Arabia. It included all the Middle East as we know it today, including Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. That was the land that God promised to Abram.

They knew about the covenant that God made with Moses. The Jewish people knew God made a covenant with Moses in the wilderness. God gave them the Ten Commandments. He taught them how a nation should operate. You know, they were slaves for 400 years. Now they’re a nation. What do they do? They need boundaries. They need laws, precepts, statutes. And God gave all this information to Moses. He wrote it down in what we call, “The Torah,” the five books of Moses.

The sign of that covenant that God made with Moses was the Sabbath.

The sign of that covenant that God made with Moses was the Sabbath.

Why was it the Sabbath? Because slaves don’t rest. For 400 years they were slaves. Now they’re free men. How do free men, free women; how do they live? What do they do, without killing each other? God gave them the rule book of how to live as the nation that became known as Israel.

Okay, fast forward I don’t know how many years from the wilderness to Jeremiah. I’m going to guess it’s four, five, 600 years. I’d have to look on a timeline. Doesn’t matter. Hundreds of years later, Jeremiah writes Jeremiah 31, and I actually pulled it up so I could read it to you.

Really easy numbers to remember, Jeremiah 31:31: “Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah.”

This is the only place the phrase “new covenant” appears! So, when Jesus holds up the cup and says this cup is the new covenant in my blood, this was the only place where it’s describing a new covenant. And from Jeremiah to Jesus is about 600 years. So, sages and rabbis were wondering all this time, what in the world does this mean? What is this new covenant all about?

Well, Jeremiah writes what God tells him to write. And here’s what the Lord says: “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke.”

So, Egypt comes up all the time, over 700 times in the Bible. Egypt is very important. And so, this Passover that Jesus was celebrating, it was about deliverance from Egypt. This is one thing we could talk about later, but it’s important now because Jesus was celebrating Passover.

So, the Christian needs to ask himself, “What was the significance of Passover?” It was deliverance from oppression. It was salvation from our enemies.

Me: That translates now to freedom from sin, freedom from slavery to Satan, freedom to choose and live.

Rabbi Hylan: Exactly. In fact, the Apostle Paul (I like calling him Rabbi Shaul), the Apostle Paul in Romans 6 says that because of the resurrection of Jesus, we are no longer slave to sin. Right?

That was important for me. I got saved later in life. I had a lot of sins to confess and I realized I was no longer slave to those things. That’s another discussion, but it’s a good point to share with people, when they want to know about the gospel.

So, the Passover was important. He’s going to make a new covenant, not like the one when they came out of Egypt. Okay, that was the one they made with Moses, which they broke over and over again.

My covenant, he says, “’This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after these days,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my Torah within them…’” (Torah, the word normally translated “law” is the word “instruction.” I think I mentioned that last time in part one.)

“’…I will put my teaching, my Torah within them and on their heart I will write it.’”

“’…I will put my teaching, my Torah within them and on their heart I will write it.’”

Now, this is interesting because up until this point, the word of God, the Torah, was written with a pen, an ink on animal skin. And God says, “I’m going to write it on your heart, and I’m going to put it inside of you.” What does this mean? People were wondering for years, what does this mean?

“’I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall they shall all know me the least of them to the greatest of them declares the Lord.’”

So that was different, because up until this time and even after this time the covenant hadn’t been fulfilled yet. In order to sacrifice, you had to go to the temple. You had to go to the priest. There was a system, priest, and sacrifice, in order to get forgiveness of sin. You had to go to the priest. It’s where the Catholic Church got their system from, by the way. You have to go to the priest to confess your sin. But they don’t have to do that anymore in the new covenant.

“‘They will all know me,’ says the Lord, ‘from the least to the greatest.’”

“‘They will all know me,’ says the Lord, ‘from the least to the greatest.’”

They don’t have to go to the priest any longer. And in the New Covenant, the last point says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

What is iniquity? Iniquity is the inner drive to sin. God says, “I will forgive that inner drive to sin, your iniquity, and I will remember your sins no more.” Or in common language, I will forget your sins. Now this is a mind-blower this whole idea because the all-knowing, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God; the God, who knows all, has chosen to forget something. Only place in the Bible, it says that. What has he forgotten? Our sin, (because of) the new covenant.

God, who knows all, has chosen to forget something….
What has he forgotten? Our sin, (because of) the new covenant.

What is the new covenant? “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” That’s where we get these songs. We’re washed in the blood. Our sins are washed away by the blood of the lamb. As a new believer, I had no idea what I was singing. I didn’t know what that meant. Washed in the blood. That’s gross, you know. But …our sins were as scarlet and now they’re white as snow.

You’re no longer a slave to sin. “If you can confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive your sin and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness.” And in that cleansing, God has chosen to forget our sin.

You know, I’m sitting here at my computer and you’re at your computer. On my computer I have a little note right here on the bottom left. I didn’t date it. I wish I had dated it. But a couple years ago, I was sitting here and an old sin came to mind, a sin from 50, 60 years ago. I was in my early 20s. That’s dating me, I know. And I said, “Oh, God, thank you for forgiving me of that sin.” And I heard a little voice in my head say, and I’m reading it right now, “I don’t remember that sin.”

And I was stunned. And then I stopped and I heard it again. It wasn’t audible, but it’s in my head. That’s happened to me a couple times. I hear this voice in my head. I don’t remember that sin. I said, “Oh, of course you don’t. You’ve chosen to forget it under the blood of the lamb in the new covenant.”

“I hear this voice in my head. I don’t remember that sin.”
Rabbi Hylan

So, the Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled in the New Covenant. And that’s why Paul could say in Galatians 3, and I know it by heart pretty much, but I’ll just read it to you because I have my Bible right here. That’s why Paul could say, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

Now, you’re not natural heirs like me. I’m a Jew, born a Jew. I’ll die a Jew. I’m of the physical descendants of Abraham, but I’m a descendant also, because I’m a believer in Yeshua, in Jesus. I’m of the spiritual seed of Abraham or what he calls the offspring heirs according to promise.

So, all Gentiles are now also Abraham’s offspring in a spiritual sense. And so, we see that scripture in Romans 4. I don’t have to read it. I mentioned earlier that Abraham had faith. So, it’s the faith chapter. He believed and it was reckoned to him or credited to him as righteousness. I think it’s John 8, where Yeshua says, “before Abraham was I am.” That’s when the Pharisees picked up stones to throw at him. They said you’re making yourself greater than our father Abraham. See if I can find that real quick. It’s kind of an interesting passage:

“’Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad.’ The Jews therefore said to him, ‘You were not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am…’” (This statement hearkened back to Exodus when Moses was at the burning bush and he said to God, “What will I say to Pharaoh? Who will I say has sent me?” He said, “Say, ‘I Am,’ has sent you.”) “…Therefore, they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”They knew what he was saying.

So, Abraham is important obviously for our faith. But the New Covenant comes into a fulfillment by the Old Covenant. They’re one covenant for us. Hope that answers your question. It’s a long answer. It’s great question!

Me: So, you talked about the significance of the cup, the third cup being the redemption cup as a part of Passover. There was also a lamb at Passover. Doesn’t that also represent Christ?

Rabbi Hylan: Yes, of course. So, the cup was the sign of the covenant. Every covenant has a sign. Yeshua said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” So, the sign of the new covenant is his blood.

Every covenant has a sign. Yeshua said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” So, the sign of the new covenant is his blood.

It was the blood of a lamb that was shed at the original Passover. And I’m not going to go into all the details. They can read it in Exodus 12. The Israelites would take a branch of hyssop, dip it in the blood, and put the blood over the lentil and doorposts of their house. Some of your audience would know that would form a cross or so it would seem.

And when the destroyer came through Egypt, he passed over the homes that had the blood. Now, I wonder how many Gentiles, Egyptians, or foreigners who knew about this act, tried it. I just wonder if any of them did it themselves.

Me: Or, if they went in the house of their Hebrew neighbors that night and hid!

But yeah, that sign of the blood protected them from destruction, just as the blood of Jesus protects us from destruction and gives us entrance into God’s family and into all the promises, and into eternity.

Rabbi Hylan: Amen. Amen. It’s beautiful.

So, a lamb’s blood was shed at Passover. They would eat the lamb during the original Passover.

Yeshua said, you know, he earnestly desired to eat this Passover with his disciples. If Jesus earnestly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples, I think we should earnestly desire to understand why he earnestly desired to eat the Passover with them.

I think we should earnestly desire to understand why he earnestly desired
to eat the Passover with them.

And so, we celebrate Passover every year. I’ve done it every year of my life. It’s a lot of years. It’s become more and more meaningful every year.

So, when John the Baptist saw Jesus, what did he say? “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” It’s a beautiful picture that all should understand.

Me: Good point. So, since we’re our time is running on, could we talk about the second feast, the Feast of First Fruits?

Rabbi Hylan: Sure. So, the Feast of First Fruits. If you go to Leviticus Chapter 23, God gives to Moses all these festivals. First the Sabbath; then Passover; the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and then the Feast of First Fruits. The Feast of First Fruits is called Yamha Bikkurim, the day of the first fruit. And it’s also the first day of the counting of the Omer.

The Omer is a sheath of wheat. And God says, when do you start counting? The day after the Sabbath of Passover. So, they start counting 50 days after the Sabbath of Passover. The day after the Sabbath is the first day of the week… What happened, about 1300 years later, the day after the Sabbath of Passover?

Jesus is crucified. The women go to the tomb on the dawn of the first day of the week, and they find the grave empty.

So, on the Feast of First Fruits, after the last supper of Yeshua, they start counting the omer, and he’s resurrected from the dead.

The omer is counted 50 days beginning on the day of his resurrection. Now it says in scripture that he spent 40 days with them. That’s the first 40 days of the 50-day count. Ten days later was Shavuot, Pentecost. Shavout means Feast of Weeks because it was seven Sabbaths plus one day, 50 days. That’s when we get to Acts Chapter 2.

Me: Go right on. How does Acts Chapter 2 relate? Go ahead and expand on that a little bit and then we’ll pray.

Rabbi Hylan: Well, Acts Chapter 2 was the fulfillment of God’s plan for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So many Christians think… This is what I wanted to communicate: the last Passover wasn’t a one-off holiday. Shavout wasn’t a one-of-a-kind event that just happened out of nowhere. The Jewish people had been celebrating that festival for 1300 years, since Leviticus 23.

It says in Acts Chapter 2:1, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Well, that’s not exactly what the Greek says. If you have a good Bible, in the margin mine has a note. It says in verse one of Chapter 2 that the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled, it wasn’t a one-off, it was being fulfilled.

Lord, thank you for today. Thank you for Mary. I pray that people would hear this word. It would get into their hearts and their minds and they would be transformed, and it would be significant to enhance their walk with you in the mighty name of Yeshua. Amen.

Me: I agree. I pray for the people that we would all better understand the importance of the Jewish people. the importance of the history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then all of his sons, and what they went through, and how we learn from that, and how Jesus came from that root.

Thank you, Lord, for these insights, that pastor Rabbi has blessed us with his time; with sharing his understanding and his knowledge with us. So, we just pray and bless him back. Thank you for him in his fairly new retirement, He’s on to new things.

Maybe for just a minute …you could share. You’re thinking of starting a podcast. Could you talk about that?

Rabbi Hylan: Well, I have no information yet, but I’m definitely starting a podcast. I’m starting an LLC for my ministry and, Lord willing, it’ll be blessed and God will use it.

Me: So, maybe down the road if people see this they can hunt for you online somewhere, but we don’t know where.

Rabbi Hylan: Google my name. It’s one of a kind.

Me: Yeah. Hey, your last name. Can you tell the people?

Rabbi Hylan: Yeah. Slobodkin. Hylan. H-Y-L-A-N S-L-O-B-O-D-K-I-N. We’re toying with either RabbiHylan.com or TheRabster.com (the Rabbi – Pastor).

Rabbi Hylan: Well, thanks, Mary.

Me: Okay. Well, thank you very much for your time, and goodbye to the audience.

‘I’m definitely starting a podcast…
H-Y-L-A-N S-L-O-B-O-D-K-I-N
We’re toying with either RabbiHylan.com or TheRabster.com

PASSOVER 2026 Begins April 1st at Sunset

April 2, 2026April 11, 2026 / Fire Starter for Jesus / 2 Comments

The events of the first Passover happened thousands of years ago. God sent Moses to free his people from slavery and oppression in Egypt as recorded in the book of Exodus. Before we dive into that first Passover, it’s noteworthy to acknowledge that some of today’s prophetic voices are saying a widespread exodus is in the process of taking place nowadays. They tell us God is breaking oppression in a global sort of way and removing wickedness in high places throughout the world to set nations free.

It’s also interesting to notice that in 2026 Passover begins at sunset on April 1st. Resurrection Sunday falls in the middle of Passover – Unleavened Bread, on the Feast of First Fruits. These Spring Feasts from the Hebrew lunar calendar and Resurrection Day (Easter) from our western solar calendar do not always correspond the way they do this year.

it’s noteworthy to acknowledge that some of today’s prophetic voices are saying a widespread exodus is in the process of taking place

Now back to the first exodus. Here’s what happened long ago: A multiyear famine drove Jacob, along with eleven of his sons and their families out of Caanan into Egypt. They moved at the invitation of Jacob’s second youngest son, Joseph, who was living in Egypt at the time and had become quite powerful. He was in charge of the food supply. Jacob’s extended family lived happily in Egypt with access to food and protected by Joseph for a time.

Later, however, Joseph was forgotten. A new Pharoah (king) ruled Egypt. This Pharoah became suspicious and afraid of Jacob’s extended family because the clan had grown from a small band of people into a nation of many. The new Pharaoh felt intimidated because Jacob’s family, now called Israelites, outnumbered the Egyptians.

Under this new Pharoah the Egyptians oppressed and enslaved the Israelites. Near the end, they forced them to kill their newborn male children to keep the number down. It’s at this point Moses was born. He escaped death in Egypt and moved away. Later in life, God sent Moses back to Egypt to deliver the Israelites.

Getting away from Egypt was quite a process. The new Pharoah didn’t want to let his free labor pool go. When Moses and his brother Aaron spoke with Pharoah, that king repeatedly refused to release the people. It became a battle of the gods, Egypt’s idols against the God of the Hebrews.

Plague after plague hit Egypt; ten plagues in all. At first everyone experienced the plagues. Later only the Egyptians felt the sting. Each plague wreaked havoc upon Egypt. Nonetheless, the Pharoah would not relent. At the end, the final plague came, death of the firstborn.

The death angel struck all the families in Egypt while God’s people were protected by following God’s instructions. They applied the blood of a pure spotless lamb onto the door frames of their homes and stayed inside that important night.

In a sense it was payback time for how the Pharoah had killed the Israelites’ baby boys. The night the death angel came, all first born of Egypt died. Then Pharoah relented. He ordered the Hebrew people to leave.

God gave instructions to the people through Moses. God instructed them to ask for valuables from their Egyptian neighbors; it was a great transfer of wealth. In a sense it was payback for years of slavery. Next the Israelites were to eat an unblemished lamb for dinner and pack up. There was much to do and little time, so they made and ate unleavened bread. Regarding the lamb, Moses said to eat the whole thing and apply its blood to the door frames of their homes. This blood was a sign to the death angel to stay away because all behind those doors were protected by God.

The Israelites left the next morning. After they departed, Egypt’s Pharoah changed his mind and chased after them with his army, backing them up against the Red Sea. The LORD delivered them from that precarious position, too, with signs and wonders the surrounding nations would learn about and remember years later. More miracles were to follow.

So, the first Passover celebrates God’s deliverance of Israel from oppression in Egypt.

So, the first Passover celebrates God’s deliverance of Israel from oppression in Egypt.

Once free, the people still needed a change of mind and heart from the impact of all those years of slavery. It took a generation to turn the men into warriors with enough faith and fortitude to enter and possess the land God had promised to give them. Between times, they wandered in the desert. When the time to enter arrived, God appointed new leadership for Israel, Joshua Son of Nun.

Photo by I Own My Food Art on Pexels.com

The Book of Exodus tells the story of the first Passover. It’s commemorated annually by a Spring feast that falls on different dates from year-to-year, when using a western calendar. The year of 2026, Passover begins the evening of April 1^st and is celebrated along with The Feast of Unleavened Bread which ends on April 9th, 2026.

It’s interesting that Resurrection Day (Easter) is April 5th, which is the Feast of First Fruits this year. It’s the fourth full day after Passover (according to the way westerners think of days) and it’s the third full day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Numbers can be significant in their meanings. Many say four means creation in Hebrew. I’ve heard others say four means a doorway or portal. Three has meaning too. Check online if you want to know more about numbers or if you are researching dates for celebrations on a different year.

Jewish people have various customs for celebrating Passover that have developed over time. In the days of Jesus Christ, Jews came into Jerusalem to offer an animal sacrifice in the temple and eat the Passover Seder meal. When he was a child, Jesus’ family went to the temple to celebrate Passover. Later, Jesus died on a Roman cross around Passover and he rose on First Fruits.

The practice of offering animal sacrifices in the temple stopped around 70 A.D. when the temple was destroyed. Then other customs developed as a substitute. Christians believe Jesus Christ is our once and forever sacrifice for sin. He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice. No more sacrifices are needed to atone for sin. The New Testament teaches Jesus Christ died as the world’s perfect Passover Lamb and he lives as a first fruit of many resurrections to come.

Observant Jews have celebrated Passover throughout the centuries and many still do so today. Jews, Messianic Jews and some Christians celebrate Passover with a Seder meal, knowing in the Old Testament God appointed Passover as a biblical feast for the people of Israel to celebrate. If you’re interested in learning more about the Seder there are many resources online. The Chosen did a good job of depicting an example of it.

Jesus Christ offered himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin. No more sacrifices are needed. He was the world’s perfect Passover Lamb and he lives as a first fruit of many resurrections to come.

_____________________________________________

Notes:

For those of you interested in the question of days, dates, and timing of Jesus’ death and resurrection here’s a link to one Messianic Rabbi’s perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdw1OwSZUdo

For those of you interested in learning more about the biblical feasts of the Lord and their significance for Jews and Christians, here is one source: https://jesusplusnothing.com/series/post/FeastsIntroduction

Severe Burns Healed at Super Speed with No Scars!

January 15, 2026January 15, 2026 / Fire Starter for Jesus / 4 Comments

Me: Hi, I’m Mary, Fire Starter for Jesus for online publishing. I’m with Bill and Raye Gray. They had an amazing, traumatic adventure happen over Thanksgiving time. We’re sharing it with you, so you can celebrate with us how good God is, discover what he did, and build up your faith for similar things in your life; for God’s rescue and his presence to be there whenever you need him.

This YouTube video documents the entire interview. The blog post is a condensed version.

Mary: So, with that introduction, who wants to go first?

Raye: Well, I guess I’ll start out by setting the scene. We flew to Silver City, New Mexico…

Bill Gray looking over Silver City, New Mexico

…to help my twin sister, Faye, and her husband, Floyd, with some remodeling…. Bill and Floyd were going to install an oven…. Bill was helping Floyd…. It was the day before Thanksgiving.

Bill: We were moving the location of the wall outlet…. This is an adobe home…. Floyd was using a little handheld jigsaw… to cut the wall so that we could move the outlet up…. There was an unknown gas line behind the wall…. While that jigsaw was cutting, it nicked a propane line.

He was under the counter…. I was… leaning in with a vacuum cleaner to keep the dust down. Multiple times, he hit this saw into the wall. Floyd stopped the saw for a moment…. When it restarted, that electric saw ignited the propane. So, he and I both got a fireball in the face and on the hands and arms. That’s how it all started.

Raye: My sister Faye and I were in the back of the house. We heard this explosion. We ran in. It was frightening; there was this fire in the kitchen. Bill was standing with his hands up… screaming. They were both in shock. My sister got the fire extinguisher and started to put out the fire.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

Meanwhile, Bill looked at me saying, “I’ve got to get some cool water on my body.” So, we ran into the master bath and pulled off his shirt, His whole neck was bright red, the side of his face and his hands too. The hair on his arms, gone. His skin, bright red and already starting to form blisters.

We splashed cold water on him…. Then I looked and said, “We have got to take you into the hospital and see what they say about this.”

He was in shock and started praying in tongues. He prayed loudly. Every time he could feel the pain, he would scream in tongues. He was crying out to the Lord. The Spirit was interceding for him.

Throughout the drive, he was shaking and praying in tongues. When I stopped, I would lean over and touch him. The shaking would stop. I’d say, “Okay, we’re almost there.” He’d be okay for a while. Then he’d start praying in tongues. We got to the emergency room. I had to park the car, so I dropped him off and he ran in.

Bill: I had no shirt on. It was cool. Raye threw her coat around me. She loosely tied the arms around my neck like a cape. I went running through the emergency room door kind of like Superman….

There was no one there; no security guard, nobody waiting. I looked into the triage office…. I was freaking out. The pain level with burns is something that you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I ran to the back of the ER room. Somebody was inside, so I knocked on the door and loudly stated, “I need to see somebody.” The lady inside… pointed to go someplace else. So, I ran back to this triage office. There were two desks…. One was empty. Another was around the corner. Someone was… there!

So, I ran in. With burned hands, I had to pull my wallet out and throw my identification and insurance cards on the desk. I said, “I’ve been burned! I need help!”

Raye: Right about then I came in. They just kept looking, staring at him, not really getting what was going on.

Bill: I was wet, no shirt on.

Raye: We’d been splashing water on him. The whole thing combined to make him look rather odd. I said, “He’s with me. He’s been badly burned. They hit a gas line. There was an explosion.”

That’s when they took him back into the triage area. I had to sit in the waiting room for quite a significant amount of time, the better part of an hour.

Bill: As much pain as I was in, they were not giving me medication. They needed to draw blood, to make sure I wasn’t on something…. They took chest X-rays to see if my lungs had been burned. All of this before they were going to give me any intravenous pain medications. It was a significant amount of time.

If they hadn’t previously heard speaking-in-tongues, they understand what they are now. We were right across from the nurses’ station, just a little thin curtain between us. My choice was between screaming or speaking-in-tongues in a loud voice.

Believe it or not, I didn’t have to try to speak in tongues. I just was!

Anytime someone came in and needed to ask me a question, I could speak in English. But as soon as they were gone, I began speaking in tongues again. It was probably for the better part of two hours.

After an …hour they put pain medication into the IV. It took time for that to slowly work the pain level down. At some point … I said, “You know, my wife could come in.” They said, “Oh! Okay,” like they didn’t know anybody was out there.

Raye: When I walked in, a man was working on him. He said, “My name’s Ted and here’s what’s going to happen…. We are going to airlift your husband to a burn center. The closest burn centers are in San Antonio, Denver, Tucson and Phoenix.

First they had to contact the centers and say, “Do you have room? And can you send a helicopter?”

So another hour and a half later they came in and said, “Okay, the burn center in Phoenix has an opening. You’ve already been here two-and-a-half hours, almost three. We can walk you through fixing the circumferential blisters here.”

To explain, circumferential blisters go all the way around your finger without stopping. They tend to swell up and cut off the circulation. Since Bill’s a guitar player, they were concerned that his fingers would suffer and not recover. So, they were going to airlift him.

The burn center said, “We can walk you through that procedure and then he just has to be observed for three more hours.”

Bill: So, they took the blister material off of my hands. I don’t think there was 360 degrees of blistering; an area was charred but never blistered. In the release papers they talked about an area with superficial burning, which must have been on my face, where I’d lost part of my beard, an eyebrow and about a half an inch of my hairline.

They put a triple antibiotic on me, wrapped ‘em up, and sent me home with Percocet.

Raye: They sent him home with six Percocet because the next day was Thanksgiving. Not one pharmacy was open in this small town on Thanksgiving Day. They were concerned that my brother-in-law and Bill, would be in pain. So, they sent us home with Percocet, ibuprofen and Tylenol. They said, “…you can come back the day after Thanksgiving and we’ll check everything out to make sure everything’s going well.”

Bill: As we left, they said, “The pain is hard to knock down, so don’t let it come back. Use these Percocet and we’ll keep you in good shape.”

I took the Percocet before bed, assuming I’d wake up in the middle of the night with pain and have to take it again. They wanted me to use Percocet and also take two Tylenol and two Advil at the same time every four hours.

It’s amazing that I didn’t wake up in the night with pain. I woke up in the morning with no more pain than the night before. It was unexpected…. Instead of taking another Percocet I dutifully took two Advil and two Tylenol. Within a couple of days, I dropped the Tylenol altogether. I simply wasn’t dealing with pain, which was amazing to me.

Friday we went back to the hospital as they’d asked…. I thought they wanted to inspect my hands for circumferential blistering, so even though I had no pain to speak of, we went back.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

The attending emergency room physician was someone we hadn’t seen before. He unwrapped a couple of fingers on my left hand, then became upset saying, “Well, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to do this at home.” We said, “We’re here because we were told to come in so that you could take a look.”

He got so upset he just kind of left….

They sent in the same guy who had done the bandages in the first place…. He opened up my hand. It still looked about the same. But there wasn’t any pain. Evidently, it didn’t look how he expected.

My face looked like it had been in the sun. The redness on my neck was all gone. In fact, before we’d left the first time, the coloration had turned almost natural. I’d had a sunburn look around my neck where the shirt blocked some of that flame. So, we were seeing accelerated healing right from the from the start.

As you might expect, I was a basket case. There was fear and panic….

The first time we were there, I’d taken one look at the back of my left hand. It looked like a steak that had been grilled at 500 degrees. When you pull the steak off the grill, before it turns brown, it turns an off-white color. No knuckles anymore. My hand had these funny striations going in the direction of the fingers.

This second visit, as he was demonstrating the wrapping process he told us, “It’s not going to be a quick fix…. You’re going to be looking at six to eight weeks anyway. So, plan on the long haul. As soon as you get back to Seattle see your doctor. Have him refer you to the Seattle Burn Center. You can continue there.”

Any questions so far? Anything I missed?”

Me: I remember, when hearing this before, you made a comment about the burn on your face and on your neck. You said, “I wanted my wife to be able to look at me.”

Bill: I snuck a peek in the mirror while we were splashing water. I was fearful of what I was going to see. I saw my face. I just praise God that my wife has a face that she can look at. So that was wonderful!

Raye: Yeah.

Bill: When I was in that hospital the first time, I looked at the back of my hand. My fingers were stiff, almost like somebody had taped popsicle sticks to the back. There wasn’t any ability to bend them. I was freaked out that there could be an issue with me ever playing guitar.

At some point while we were in the hospital… I got a little flash of myself playing the guitar. It was as if I were looking over my shoulder, seeing myself with a guitar in my hands. I believe the Holy Spirit was giving me a glimpse into the future to settle me, to let me know that I can count on doing that again.

Raye: Also, he’s mentioned trauma and fear. Thanksgiving Day we just had soup for dinner because none of us wanted to turn on the propane barbecue. We were all like, “No. Way, too soon for that! We are not going there.”

Friday, we got up early and joined an online prayer meeting. After that we felt like, “Okay, time to break off trauma, fear, timidity; anything that could have made an entrance because of the trauma…. So, we did. Floyd, Faye, Bill and I prayed for one another and broke trauma off all of us. It was a real thing; it really left us at that time.

When we got home, without thinking, Bill turned on the gas stove and put something on it. We looked at each other and started laughing. “Oh, my word. We just overcame, you know!

Bill: I want to make sure everybody knows, Floyd and Faye’s brand-new kitchen was unscathed. Nothing caught fire. It was remarkable! The biggest mess was from the fire extinguisher. Ha, ha! That took a while to clean….

Now, there’s another thing before we go on. Usually when there has been some kind of emergency, I tend to lock down emotionally and get stuff done. Then later I’ll think about the emotions. That was not the case at all here. I was simply beyond myself. I was making noises.

Either I stepped back quickly or angels may have pulled me back. I don’t know, but it was quick. I was back. I still can envision this orange ball of fire that hit me in the face as I backed up. You can’t get back fast enough. It comes faster than you can move. Suddenly, I was back. And I remember seeing orange flames coming off my arms and hands. It was a bizarre, incomprehensible image.

I was totally in shock.

Me: Your clothes didn’t catch on fire, right?

Bill: No…. Floyd’s vest, I sent you a picture of that. It was a mess. It burned up the back towards his hair. He didn’t remember taking off the vest. Had he not taken it off immediately, it would have probably melted to whatever he was wearing underneath.

Me: I’m glad you’re talking about the pictures you sent. I will put them in the video. Which picture is of you, and which is of Floyd?

Raye: There’s one that shows a big blister on the wrist: that was Floyd. It was taken after a couple days. Floyd’s skin did not present immediately with much damage. He looked like he had a very slight sunburn. Bill was bright red; his hands were all blistering before we went to the hospital.

Photo of Floyd’s wrist sent by Raye Gray.

Floyd felt burning, but it didn’t manifest the way it did with Bill. Floyd took a shower. Then finally his wife convinced him to go to the hospital. So, Floyd was in a room with one doctor, and we were in a different room with a different doctor. They were being treated completely differently. They told Floyd, “We’re just going to loosely bandage this, Go on home.” They were talking about airlifting Bill because of circumferential burns.

Bill: Floyd was actually closer to the action.

Raye: So, for Floyd, during the next couple of days he started to badly blister. His entire face swelled up. The skin burst open. It was horrendous.. It all peeled off and now he’s got baby skin; nice and soft. So, the reactions behaved differently. We still don’t know why.

The Lord used that traumatic incident to show both Bill and I some things that we were afraid of. Maybe we’ve had these fears our entire lives. So, when we started praying to break off trauma for different things, Bill said, “You know, I feel like I need to break off a spirit of timidity that’s been with me my whole life.” So, the Lord was bringing up other things for us to address, as though they were traumatic like this incident. It’s been a life-changer for both of us.

Bill: I want to go briefly back to my state of mind in shock. I want anyone who listens to understand what I learned from this situation: You may not be the person you think you are. I bought three more fire extinguishers. If there’s a fire upstairs, I may not have the wherewithal or the time to run downstairs, find a fire extinguisher in the garage or in the laundry room, or wherever I happen to have one, and get back up. I believe that something as simple as a fire extinguisher should be in multiple places… where you don’t have to think about it. You can grab and go. Then there’ll be time to think about it….

We pray that nothing like this happens to others. I just found for myself, I was unable to be the person who I previously thought I would be. Does that make sense?

Me: Yes.

Raye: It’s not because we’re such great spiritual people. It’s all God. Because at your worst, your lamest, your weakest, your most fearful, your most traumatized; he comes and rescues you. That’s really the message. Like Bill said, it wasn’t that he decided to speak in tongues. He just started. So, I guess the only thing would be to make sure you’re well versed in your prayer language because when you need it, you want to have more than just a couple words.

Bill: I’m so happy that I have that relationship with the Lord. The word of God says what’s in us comes out of us. Tongues was in me. It’s the first thing that came out once I got a hold of myself, once I quit just making noises…groaning. I was doing some of that up front. But it was so wonderful that tongues came out.

Raye: Yeah… if anything could be marked to our credit, it would just be practicing the art of staying in contact with the Lord. Outside of that, there is nothing that prepared us for that situation.

Me: I’m thinking, you might not have known where the physical fire extinguisher was, but tongues was your spiritual fire extinguisher! You got that ready!

Raye: That’s good, Mary. So good!

Bill: That’s true.

Me: So, can we pick the story back up with the recovery process, go a little further into that?

Bill: This is when it started to become amazing. All I knew is that I didn’t hurt. That was so surprising! But I set up an appointment with my local MD…. I saw him Wednesday morning…. He unwrapped the wraps.

He looked quizzically at me and said, “Now when did this happen?”

Photo of Bill Gray’s hand sent by Raye Gray

I said, “Well, a week ago today, in the afternoon.” He shook his head and said, “We don’t need to contact the burn center. I think you’re going to be done with this in about a week.” He was stunned!

I just went, “Praise God.”

He showed me how to rewrap. We did it for a week. We started not covering those parts that were healing.

Fourteen days after the event… It was Tuesday night when we typically attend the healing rooms at church. For a number of years now, I’ve played a couple of songs there to set an atmosphere. I had not picked up a guitar. At that point I had a band-aid on each of two fingers.

I felt compelled to go there, to share this testimony and to give God the glory. In strapping on the guitar and singing a couple of songs I started to realize that something amazing had taken place a few days or a week earlier.

We’d been home for a couple or three days. And the way our minds are built, we tend to forget the negative. As things were getting so much better, this thought came to my mind: maybe it just wasn’t as bad as what I think it was. About that time, Raye came with the release papers that they gave us at the hospital. The papers said they’d treated us for superficial burns, smoke inhalation, (which I’m not sure I had much of), second-degree burns, and third-degree burns.

All of a sudden it kicked me back into miracle mode.

We were fortunate enough to have had doctors that wrote… what it was, what the natural says. And here is what the kingdom of God says, where God meets the natural world. The supernatural is His natural. It’s only supernatural to us.

So, I’ve been walking through this incredible acceleration of healing. I’ve spoken to so many people in the last few weeks who, at some point in their lives, had burns. Some of them were serious. I talked to somebody a couple of days ago that has scars that have never healed.

Yet there are no scars!

It’s absolutely amazing and unbelievable except in God. Our Lord is so good! Beyond all we can ask or think.

Raye: Yeah. Remember, he said he had no movement in his hands. Look at that!

He was able to play a week later at the healing rooms…. It just sounded wonderful!” Now he’s released a new Christmas song and his hands are working perfectly….

Later in the interview…

Me: Raye, I’m wondering… This was super traumatic for Bill. He went through all of this, but you were right there experiencing this with him, and seeing what was happening to him. You have your own processing and your own story. I think we’d like to hear a bit from you, too. if you want to share.

Raye: Sure…. It’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through; seeing my husband hurting so badly, not having anything that I could do for him, just knowing that it had to be God. And the trauma of walking in, seeing everything that’s going on, and hearing him literally screaming like a wounded animal. It was nothing you ever expect to hear from your husband or from anyone that you care about, or love.

So, when that happens, oh, it grips your heart!

There’s such heaviness about it. And you know, just flailing around in my own natural mind, thinking, what can I do?

My first reaction was, “Why are you screaming?” I thought he was trying to tell me something to do, like how to put out the fire or something. My mind was kind of suspended. I’m like, “Why are you screaming? Why are you screaming?” And then he says, “I need water.” And then I realized, “Oh, he’s burned.”

It was out of the realm of my brain to try to solve. And so, there was that immediate trauma. And then when I walked into the emergency room and saw that they had not been taking care of him, or helping him, and they were discounting him, because of thinking maybe he was on meth or something. Yet he was still screaming in pain.

I didn’t understand what was going on. When I finally got back in the ER they said, “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to airlift your husband.” I just heard that word, “we’re going to airlift him to a burn unit.” I got out my phone and started texting every prayer group I could think of.

Me: The word got around fast!

Raye: I was like, “We need help. We need people storming heaven because this is beyond me. I know it’s not beyond the Lord. And I felt like he was saying, “Hey, you’ve got lots of resources. Reach out to them. Get them on the job.”

There were people praying in Somalia, people praying in Pakistan, people praying all over the United States of America and Europe who belonged to the Corey Russell small groups. They were all alerted. The word was spreading like wildfire. All of those groups, and the groups at Eden, and the groups at Hope community in Burien; all were praying for one person, not just one, because I mentioned Floyd of course. These two people had been burned. I know God used that network of people.

Bill: I want to thank each and every one for your prayers. The fervent, effective prayers of the righteous accomplish much. And they did; they do; they have and they will. Yeah. And God bless everyone.

Raye: Yes. It’s so wonderful! It’s wonderful to have access to that kind of support, those kinds of warriors, that kind of army.

Me: Yeah. It’s a great illustration of the body of Christ working. When one-part hurts, everybody gets involved. And how important it is to be networked, to know other people, right?

Raye: And Mary, none of these people said, “Well, what’s his theology? Does he believe in this, this, and this?” No. They were all just like dropping everything and praying for him. I felt this unity of the body of Christ. No bickering about details. No, no bickering about what you believe or don’t believe. None of that.

It was just that we love this person or at least someone who loves this person, we love them.

Hey, the body’s coming together and… every joint supplies. What a wonderful thing! Life started flowing through Bill’s arms, his hands, his face and Floyd’s face, his arms and hands. What wonderful unity I felt with the body of Christ.

When we prayed with a prayer group online that next day, we felt this belonging. One told me later, “When we saw your name pop up; that you guys had joined the prayer meeting two days after the fire, she said, “There was great rejoicing in the camp, rejoicing that you were on there.”

So, it was such a powerful time. The Lord is faithful to reveal mindsets that we don’t realize we have, unbelief we don’t realize we have, things that traumatized us earlier in our lives; all this stuff. The Lord gently uses your circumstance and situation and says, “Okay, now is a good time to take care of this. Let’s just get it all cleaned out.” He’s so faithful.

Me: In that regard, the people watching have probably experienced trauma of some form in their lives, or they know someone who has.

Bill: Absolutely.

Me: Could the two of you who experienced this prayer for the healing of trauma, pray for our listeners; for the Lord to bring healing in whatever way they need it? As we’ve been telling this story, some people may be remembering trauma they’ve been through. It might be on the surface right now. They might need that touch and that comfort. So, if you could do so, that would be awesome!

Raye: Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah…. You know there is absolutely nothing that can stand before the power of God.

You (listeners/readers) are filled with the same power that raised Christ from the dead. When he brings that to your remembrance, that power will rescue you and draw you nearer to God. And there is nothing, no trauma, no pain, no sorrow, no grief; there is no darkness that can stand before the mighty, unlimited power of the Almighty God. He is just hovering, so to speak, waiting; waiting for you to open your eyes, look at him, and say:

“Okay! Mighty power of God, break that trauma off me. Release me from the grief… that keeps sucking me down. Release me into your joy.”

And he will do that. In fact, I believe he’s going to do that now, if you will turn to him this minute.

Say, “Jesus, I acknowledge I’m filled with the power that raised you from the dead, and I am going to let that power work within me, deliver me, and set me free once and for all.”

Jesus never went back down into the grave repeatedly. He was raised once and for all. And so, right now we take that opportunity. “We say… God, I’m yours. I’m filled with God and you are working in me to release me from those things.”

So, Lord, break off every trauma. Break off every grief. Break off every sorrow and depression and anxiety in your name, Jesus.

Me: I want to point out, for those who are listening, Raye just used the word, “release.”

When you’re hurting, if you shove the emotional pain down, it’s going to pop back up. But if you do what Raye said, release it; release the hurt, the grief, the fear, the trauma, and the pain. If you will release it to God, then he’ll take it.

Raye: He will.

Me: Then he’ll release back to you what you need in its place. Might be peace, might be joy, might be comfort; it might be all three. But give him the painful feeling and receive his feelings which are way better.

Raye: Amen. Haha! Hallelujah.

Bill: A verse came to my mind when I realized that I didn’t want trauma that holds so many people back to be something added on to the things that have held me back. The verse the Lord brought to my mind was, “I did not give you a spirit of fear.”

Fear is a spirit. Related to that is trauma. Trauma is a fear related spirit. Timidity is a fear related spirit.

Me: Yes.

Bill: So, I said, “Gosh, this is a spiritual matter. But he gave us a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind.”

It was that sound mindedness that was particularly highlighted for me when I was not in that sound minded place. When I was filled to overflowing, not with the peace of God, but filled to overflowing with fear, anxiety, agony, terror; all those kinds of things.

And so, I want to speak and anyone who is listening to this now, or at a future time, in the mighty name of Jesus:

Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

“We command any spirit of terror, trauma, fear, or timidity… go now in the mighty name of Jesus. You have no authority in this person’s life. Be gone from them now. Yes. In the mighty name, we command you to do so. Hallelujah!”

Bill: Even after the enemy’s been kicked out, it seems too often he comes back to kind of jabber in your ear, you know, and see if you’ll let him back in; to give you fear about this or that. I try to visualize. I’m somewhat a visual person.

I remember when Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

We have authority when a thought comes that is not of the Lord. We know where it’s from because it’s not an edifying thought. We have authority to take that thought and cast it out. And so, I tend to see the cross, the foot of the cross, right over here (to the right) someplace. These last few weeks, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve declared, “No, not doing that.’ Taking my hand, I grab and toss the thought or feeling down at the foot of the cross.

I just imagine the blood of Jesus, roll down the cross over that.”

If others can utilize that same visual, it’s a prophetic act. If you ever see me at church motioning a toss down, that’s what I’m doing. I’m removing whatever is trying to establish a foothold that is not of the Lord. I just take that out. I give it to Jesus. I just drop it at the foot of the cross. Then I thank and praise the Lord for removing it.

Me: Amen. Well, thank you so much for being willing to share what you have gone through with the world out there so other people can learn and be blessed by the amazing things God did. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Yay!

Bill: Thank you for doing what you’re doing. This is great. This is so wonderful! I’m excited that you’re doing this, Not for us, for everybody and for what we have to look forward to in all that you’re going to do in this way.

Me: Thank you.

Later in the interview…

Me: When you release these songs you’re got, do you know what your platform is going to be or how you’re going to do it?

Bill: We have a Facebook page that we will be telling everybody about. It’s called, “Bill Gray Worship.” And we will be putting things out on YouTube, Spotify, and Instagram…. I’m looking forward to releasing something every two weeks.

Me: Wow. Okay.

Bill: I do have a large number of songs that I’ve wanted, for years, to get into people’s ears, into their lives; so that they can listen, sing, and speak these words over themselves and over those they love. That’s where the power comes, in doing that. So, the Lord has given me all these beautiful talents that I believe he wants put into service.

Raye: Yeah. The Lord told him a long time ago, “Revealing His Healing.” That’s Bill’s ministry. It’s coming to pass.

Me: “Revealing His Healing,” yes, through music and worship. Amen. Well, thank you for your time and God bless you abundantly. Amen.

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Experiencing the Father’s Love: Learning to Love, Part 3 of an Interview with Bill Boone

December 7, 2025December 30, 2025 / Fire Starter for Jesus / Leave a comment

Me: So, how do you do that, Bill?

Bill: How do I father people? How do you disciple, father? It’s interesting because for us, it’s not really complicated. You just hang out with people. You make yourself available to people. We’ve got a number of relationships with different people, but it’s also learning to do that. I mean, I’ve got a couple different groups that I hang out with mostly on Zoom and then I’ve got relationships with…. Actually, the book, “Always Loved,” by Brent Lokker. I meet with him, probably almost once a month. He’s a father to me. And so, it’s really opening yourself up to relationship with people around. You don’t have to be older. I think Brent Lokker is probably my age. So, it’s not an age thing. It’s a heart thing.

Me: Also, you know, we’re supposed to be the body of Christ. This is my little preach now, It’s not all about one way giving all the time. Sometimes I can have a friend, and in some areas they’re ahead of me and I can learn from them. But in other areas, maybe I’m ahead of them and they can learn from me. So, it’s not like we have to rank people based on who’s ahead, who’s behind, who’s the father, and who’s the child. But it is more about learning how to be interwoven; how to love and give what we have, and be humble; to be able to learn when we don’t know something and honor one another. I think that’s important.

Bill: Absolutely. I think a lot of that, Mary, comes with maturity. When you’re young, you’re passionate about what you’ve got and you’re pursuing to be heard. You’re also pursuing to understand. And some of us who are more verbal processor types like myself, I like to hear myself talk. Not because I’ve got this ego thing but just so I can understand a little more of what I’m feeling and thinking and processing. So, sometimes I’ve got a good friend that I’m working with now that we’re walking out a process of relationship. I don’t always agree with what he has to offer, what he has to share, but I have to honor what he has. And so that’s part of the rub. Iron sharpens iron in walking with people. You have to realize that you’re not the center of the universe. You’ve got to give place to other people, what they think and feel and what they’re walking through.

Me: That’s good. So, how do you honor what you don’t agree with? What do you do?

Bill: Well, you listen. You give people a chance to voice what’s in their heart without a preconceived judgment. I think that’s the struggle for me. I still have different perspectives and different ideas. I have to guard myself from reacting to some of the things people say that I don’t agree with. I have to set all that stuff aside when relating to people. Is that okay?

I don’t see it the way they do, but why am I reacting to what they said? You know, if I’m reacting, that’s not their problem. That’s mine. What problem do I have with that? And so, I try to try to let the Lord work that process out. Otherwise, I end up messing up that relationship by becoming critical and judgmental. And I don’t want that. We should war against judging other people from face value. We should war against that. We should not allow that.

Me: That’s good, Bill. Wow.

So, it sounds like, when you’re warring against that… This is a question I’m posing: It sounds like you’re self-observant about your reactions and able to exercise the fruit of self-control. You pull yourself back from saying things that would be judgmental or critical of someone, and you choose to listen and not get offended. You don’t put your own opinion in there. You’re learning to be self-aware enough in the moment someone is saying something that is sort of a rub for you, that you’re able to go, okay, self, just listen and let them go ahead and talk. You don’t get in there and say something. That’s the fruit of the Spirit. That’s kindness and self-control, gentleness, love, and peace. It’s the lack of peace that pushes people to react with whatever.

Bill: Don’t you think that is based on the fact that you don’t really feel secure in yourself? The reaction is that somehow I’ve got to defend myself. I’ve got to guard myself from something I don’t agree with, because I don’t feel safe in my own skin.

This brings up four basic needs. This originally came from Jack Frost as well. It’s the need for love, the need for security, the need for affirmation and a need for purpose. Not having those things. You live as an orphan. You’re not comforted. There are needs that are not being met. And that thing of security, I think for me, if I’m safe in my skin, go ahead and judge me. You don’t know me. If you’re going to judge me….

So, generally speaking, I learned the realities are, “Judge not lest you be judged.” Judging comes from a place of reacting to all the things that have happened to us. We react and so we end up judging. Before you know it, the very things that we’ve judged start coming back on us.

Especially over the last 10 years, my wife and I teach people to forgive people but deal with their reactions. Because every time we’re hurt, we react and it’s usually in an ungodly way. We set things in emotion that just don’t go away unless we actively deal with it. It’s important to try to. After a while of doing that, you realize that any reaction you have is based on something you’ve reacted to in the past and it needs to get dealt with. Otherwise, you’re going to be reacting to everything that comes down the pike. Your reaction is your problem.

Me: Right. You’re talking about sowing and reaping.

Bill: Exactly.

Me: So, if you sow a reaction to something and it was an ungodly reaction, and you don’t repent from it, then you’re going to start getting it back.

Bill: Yes.

Me: And you’re going to get it back bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until you recognize what you sowed and apply the blood of Jesus to it. Repent, forgive yourself and others and clean it up. Then actually you become more self-aware, to not continue to react that way. Because chances are, when we have an ungodly reaction to something, if we have never recognized that it was wrong, we’ve probably done it more than once.

Bill: But usually, they’re surrounded by a way in which we were hurt years ago. That’s my discovery. I’m still discovering things to this day. Okay, I can see why I reacted, oh, way back there when I was so-and-so age, I reacted to that situation. Children, when they’re young, just react out of the situation, not thinking of the consequences to that reaction. And all those reactions, they don’t go away unless we actually physically see them and deal with them, because they’re laws.

It’s just like the law of gravity. If I was to jump off the roof of this house, I could say all I want to say about not hitting the ground; that it’s not going to happen. “It’s not going to. I’m not going to hit the ground.” But the fact remains. It’s a law and I will hit the ground hard. And so, it’s like sowing and reaping, the law of judging. ‘Judge not lest you be judged.” Because you end up receiving the consequences.

Also, there’s honoring our parents, that’s a law. When we dishonor our parents…. All those times of rebellion that I had growing up as a kid, I ended up reaping that for a season until I learned to deal with all that stuff. It’s a law. Laws are laws and they’re not reversed unless you actually get to them, deal with them, repent, move on, and put it under blood.

Me: Without getting too personal about it, that really prods my curiosity. Can you give an example or two?

Bill: Yeah, I can. I can give you a perfect example. This was probably in 2008. I had gotten home from a conference. I was in Canada. We were being taught about bitter root judgments and bitter root expectancies. I got home and my wife Linda asked me to take out the garbage. I just reemed her up and down. I was mad at her. I said, “Yada yada yada yada!” And I was just brutal. Then, of course, I stopped and I went, “Oh my, what in the world is that?”

The next morning as I’m spending time with the Lord, I get a vision. I see myself sitting in front of the house, one of the houses that I grew up in, cross-legged, pulling weeds out of the front yard. It’s dry. I grew up in California so everything’s really dry. Trying to pull these weeds was very painful; trying to get these things out of the ground. Of course, if I had watered the ground, it would have been a lot easier. But anyway, I was a kid. I was very angry that I had to be out there pulling these weeds while my friends up the street were playing football. I couldn’t be a part of that. So, out of my mouth, I was cussing and swearing lots of profanity towards my parents. How mad I was at everything.

And I went, “Oh my,” when I saw that. I went, “Father, forgive me for dishonoring my parents with my mouth and all that stuff.” I was probably 12 years old when this happened. And so, I asked God to forgive me and cleanse me. I took authority over the things that I had said. Anyway, then the whole experience ended.

A day, or two or three later, my wife asked me to do something around the house again, which usually would have caused me to erupt in anger. All of a sudden, matter of fact, I started taking the garbage out on my own. I started doing things around the house. Then one day I stopped and I thought, “Where’s the anger? Where’s the rage that typically would come? It’s because I took authority over that. I repented. I went to God for it. That whole reaction thing left. Now I’m a help around the house without all the reaction. By the way, my wife, one of her primary love languages is acts of service. So, boy, did that fit.

Me: Yeah, that’s beautiful.

I’m teaching a group of students and one of the principles we have touched on is the sowing and reaping principle. So, it’s interesting our conversation here wandered into that.

Bill: Grace and forgiveness, by John and Carol Arnott. That is an extremely good book. We buy bunches of them and give them away. They have principles and testimonies, especially Carol’s whole experience with her mother. She saw tremendous healing. It took a three-year process for her to walk through, but she saw tremendous healing and restoration with her mother who was very brutal, very abusive to her growing up as a kid. She was fully restored before she went on to be with Jesus and stuff. And so through that, through a revelation of all that stuff.

Me: Yeah. I’ve studied that, too. But it’s really helpful to have resources to use to teach from.

Bill: So yeah, that’s a good one. That’s one we highly recommend. That book probably, I don’t know, probably has sold tens of millions of copies. It has gone out, all over the planet, that book. There are different versions. It used to be called, “The Importance of Forgiveness.” Now they’ve got it called, “Grace…” and they’ve added more to it, some amazing stuff on how to live in the grace of God.

Me: Excellent. Okay. So, briefly, back to soaking again. If you were to talk to someone who really hadn’t encountered the Lord much, they’ve heard about him, maybe heard some Bible stories or something, but they haven’t really encountered his presence. It sounds like you’re saying worship is a good place for them to encounter God. And being around others who know him can help open the way for a beginner to know him better. So, in a sense, it’s easier to encounter him in a group than it is to do all by yourself.

Bill: My experience has been that way. My wife has been different. My wife, much of her relationship was her and God alone. She’s been walking with the Lord for over 50 years, and she’s probably got 40 years of journals filled with daily writing. She’s written words in there that she’s gotten from the Lord. And and the main message that she got through the hardest times in her life was, “My daughter, I love you.” It was like a broken record, daily, because that’s what she needed to hear.

Most of us, even if we’ve had good parents, and sometimes people with good parents are the hardest to convince of their need for love. But it’s for all of us. That is really the core message of it all; it’s helping people to learn to be loved by God. And you know we are amazed a lot of times when we just hug people, and they experience the love of God.

Yeah, I would say for most people, it’s being around people who carry this love. These are the ones that come into that experience much quicker than the ones who don’t. It’s just being around people that carry the Father’s love. There’s a number of people, ministries out there, that minister this. And some people that are not really in ministry; they just emulate it because they’ve stepped into that whole arena.

For most people, it’s all about Jesus. And that’s a good thing. We really want to know Jesus. But see, even Jesus said, “It’s not about me. It’s about you coming to know the father.” Yeah.

And soaking, really simply, is learning to be comfortable in the Father’s presence. For a lot of us, it’s not a comfortable place because of all the abuse and all the pain that they’ve experienced. People have a hard time trusting. So, they have to find somebody with skin on, you know, that touches their life. I think the way to help people is to learn how to spark the hunger in people’s hearts. When I start talking about the Father’s love, people start getting hungry for it.

We had a series of meetings, this was probably 15 years ago. We were just sharing our story. A man, probably in his 70s, started balling. He walked up, right in the middle of my meeting, interrupted my sharing. I’ll tell you, he was just balling saying, “I’ve never known this love and I really want to know!” All I could do was hug him. For, the next two or three days while we were there sharing and ministering, this guy was on the floor crying, crying and crying and crying and encountering wave, after wave after wave of the Father’s love.

It’s the testimony that people carry, a lot of times, that really helps others see something more than where they’re at. What does book of Revelation say? “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” When you testify what God has done, you become an open heaven for that very thing (that you’ve experienced) for that person you’re sharing your testimony with.

Me: Yes.

Bill: I expect that, as people hear my story; not because I’m a great orator, but because I’ve had a revelation of his father’s love. They’re going to experience the Father in a different way. Or, they’re going to experience a hunger that’s deep inside of them. I’m gonna pull on a wire on the inside of them that says I don’t know, I may not understand what that is, but there’s something about that. I have that, and the only reason is because, very simply, love cannot fail.

Me: Amen.

Bill: It cannot. So, when you give away God’s love, it cannot fail. It will bridge core issues in people’s lives. It’ll go down to the core. And whether you feel it, or see it, or experience it at the moment, it’s working because God cannot fail. So his love cannot fail.

Me: Great. Very nice.

Well, it seems like this is a good place to wrap things up.

Yeah, I just felt the power of the Lord on this conversation that we’ve had, and this word about love. And I believe God is releasing love into the very fabric of this recording, so that when people watch they will be receiving God’s transformative love.

Bill: Thank you, Papa.

Me: Yeah. So, I thank you for your time.

Bill: Can I pray for everybody, please?

Me: Yes.

Bill: Yeah. Father, I just thank you so much for your amazing love. Yeah. That’s unfailing, unconditional, unrelenting, always chasing after us, always pursuing us, always looking for us, always engaging us. Father, I pray that there be a greater release of the love that you are pouring out. Father, would you begin to, even for those listening to this recording? God, that they would be deeply impacted by your incredible love, that is wooing them to you.

Father, I bless each heart. I bless those who watch this with a deeper hunger to know our heavenly father’s love. Yeah. That spirit of adoption, that spirit that’s within us all, that cries Abba Father. It’s that cry. I want to know you as Papa, you as Daddy, you as the love, the lover of our soul. Father. So, I bless each one. I thank you for the opportunity, once again to share your incredible love and talk about the impact that’s had on our lives.

Let it go deeper, farther, further than ever before, Father, in those who hear this. And let it be such a unquenchable pursuit to know, at the core of each of our lives, that we might know the height, the width, the length, the depth, of the love of Christ which passes knowledge. That we might be filled with the fullness of God. And do beyond what we could ever ask, or think, Father, according to your spirit that works within us; who is always shedding abroad your love within our hearts, cascading wave after wave, after wave, in our hearts, Father, by your Spirit, in Jesus name. Thank you, Father, for this time. We bless you, Papa. You are so good. Amen.

Me: Amen. Praise the Lord. Thank you for carving out time in your life for this interview.

Bill: It’s not hard to do something you love.

Me: Well, God bless you and God bless Linda, your house and your family and your grandchildren. Thank you.

Bill: I receive that. Yeah.

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Link to Part 1: https://firestarterforjesus.com/2025/11/18/experiencing-the-fathers-love-with-bill-boone-part-1-crisis-encounters/

Link to Part 2: https://firestarterforjesus.com/2025/11/30/experiencing-the-fathers-love-a-transformative-journey-part-2-of-an-interview-with-bill-boone/

Link to Bill’s website: Bill Boone’s website: https://www.encounterhislove.com/

Safety and Peace in the Storms of Life

December 3, 2025January 18, 2026 / Fire Starter for Jesus / Leave a comment

Link to watch on YouTube

We are living in tumultuous times when disturbing things happen on a frequent basis. I have heard one prophet declare that Martial Law will be coming to the USA in all 50 states. Regardless of whether or not it happens, there are often unsettling or downright troublesome things suddenly arising in the world.

How do we stand firm trusting God, keeping a sound mind when we feel the shaking? We learn to abide in his presence as we have special times with him. Then we learn to carry that connection we’ve developed with him throughout all that’s going on during the rest of the day. God becomes our anchor in the storm, our light in the darkness.

To develop the ability to abide, spend special times with the Most High God. Trust him. Draw close to him by yielding continuously in your spirit. The epicenter of your spirit is located in your Bible heart deep within you, not in your head. Special times can be spent in worship, by reading and meditating on scripture, or by talking with him in prayer. You can simply sit silently in his presence as he comes to you. Any or all of these are good, alone or in combination.

He’s already reaching out to you and me. He’s speaking. As you and I get better at being still before him, as we practice tuning into his frequencies, we learn to discern his presence. We come to recognize his voice. We grow in hearing him more clearly. We become more aware that he is with us. We abide with him and live by the Spirit more. So, since you’re hungry for God, persist and you’ll receive increase.

My special times vary from season to season. Sometimes I meet the Lord in the morning. Sometimes in the evening. Sometimes it’s both! Sometimes I am more focused on scripture and at other times I am more focused on prayer. Either way, I’m seeking encounters with him. Needs and seasons change. My patterns do too. Regular, frequent meetings with him build this relationship. They equip me to stay in fellowship with the presence of God throughout the rest of the day.

Hopefully you’re enjoying special times with the Lord already. If not, start now! As you seek him with your whole heart, give him permission to do what he wants to do in your time together. Connect to him with your heart and your head will follow along. Your spiritual senses will develop. Your understanding will expand. Deeper fellowship with him will follow. You’ll move into that place of abiding. There’s always more!

Your special times with the Spirit of the Lord anchor you in God’s love. Persist! If you miss a few (or a lot), just briefly receive forgiveness and get back to connecting with him. It’s the long haul that counts. Focus on the present and the future, not the past. Be kind because he is.

Your intimacy with God equips you for the storms that come. If a certain routine in your time with him becomes dry, then try something else. He’s after your heart not religious performance. Be after his heart too, as the biblical David exampled!

One way to practice abiding in the secret place of his presence is to memorize and meditate on Psalm 91. Consider personalizing the scripture as I have done here. Recite the passage out loud. Your confidence will deepen. Then, when you need help, you’ll be ready to recite his promises, reassured that he’ll keep his word. That’ll give you peace in the storm and influence the spiritual world in your favor. Learn to live in the secret place. As it says in verses one and two, and the promises found in the rest of the Psalm will be yours.

God bless you as you take time to be still before him. Enter the secret place, and put your trust in Him! Sometimes you’ll discover that you have entered in and didn’t even realize it! (That’s happened to me.) Most supernatural is too quiet for our flesh, as Dennis Clark likes to say. So, keep at it! Practice brings increase. When you look back, you’ll see your growth, probably more clearly than in the moment. God sees all. Blessings!

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Experiencing the Father’s Love: A Transformative Journey, Part 2 of an Interview with Bill Boone

November 30, 2025January 29, 2026 / Fire Starter for Jesus / 1 Comment

Me: There’s a couple different directions I could go from all the things we’ve talked about (in Part 1). Clearly you said that your wife said, before a certain point in time you were kind of hard to live with, but then you encountered this love. And so, it sounds like there’s been some radical changes in your life. And I don’t know if it’s possible to go into that a little bit more, if you want.

Bill: Sure. Okay. When you don’t know you are loved, you try to look for ways to be loved. You look for ways to be affirmed. You look for ways to achieve love. You look for ways to earn love. You try to do things. It’s like the story of Jesus being with Martha and Mary. Martha was so busy trying to please Jesus with her activity. She was driven to try to please Jesus through her service; where Mary just wanted to sit and listen and soak and receive from Jesus.

There’s this performance drive that lives on the inside of all of us. Until the Father makes his love real to us. Then, all of a sudden, you realize there’s absolutely nothing you can do, nothing you’ve ever done, or ever will be able to do, to be able to achieve, to earn, or deserve his love. He just loves. He just loves. He loves you unconditionally. So, we do a lot of things for a lot of the wrong reasons. Well, we do it for the right reasons, but they’re wrong in what we do.

I was very, very hard. I was a driven person, a performance driven person. So, I sought that in other people. I was very hard on Linda. I expected my wife to be a certain way and do certain things; it was very hard and difficult to live with. But when that happened to me – the realization was, there’s nothing I can do to achieve or perform. He just loves me. It blew me out of the water. For a couple of years, I had to reorient my whole way of seeing things because what was in me, that had been driving me, was gone. Now I was this person… all I wanted to do was spend time with him. From that place, fruit started to happen. I started to love people more.

There was a price that I paid because of that driven lifestyle, before that Father encounter. While raising my daughter, I was unemotional towards her. I was disconnected. I was non-relational. I was non-touchy feeling. So, she was raised by a man that was exactly like my dad, just un-relational. Well, after that encounter, all of a sudden, all I wanted to do is find ways to reach out, find ways to…. Matter of fact, I wrote a letter to her of apology, telling her that I hadn’t realized what I was like. She has kept that letter to this day. She lives with us here in Montana, along with her eight kids. We all live together. That could not have been possible before this encounter with the Father, because I was just a very, very hard person to live with.

I’ll say this too. When your insides are unlocked from all the bondage emotionally, you have a season that you’re going to have to learn how to live in those new emotions because you’ve never experienced them before. So, there was a bit of a roller coaster while walking it out. But yet, I was always aware of his presence and his love for me as I walked through that. There’s been a lot of challenges since that time, since that encounter, but I’m not alone, ever. So, I hope that’s helpful.

Me: It’s beautiful. That’s very good. Thank you.

So, your daughter lives with you, along with eight kids. Wow! Do they do soaking prayer with you?

Bill: Some of the grandkids do. Yes, some of them do. They come out. There’s a couple of them that come out occasionally, some more regularly than the others. But yes, absolutely.

Me: How old are these kids?

Bill: The youngest is about 10 months and the oldest is 12.

Me: Okay. So, we have a real gamut of ages here.

Bill: Yes.

Me: And they’re on the young end for sure. So, how about that 12-year-old? Does the 12-year-old ever come?

Bill: She comes occasionally. She likes it probably more when we worship. We meet on Tuesday nights for soaking and sometimes for intercession. But we also meet on Saturday nights. That’s when we have worship and teaching.

Me: Very cool.

Bill: Well, know this, Mary, we built this building that we’re in right now. We built this when we moved to Montana. It’s strictly a house of prayer. For the last two and a half years, we’ve had nothing but worship going on 24/7 inside here. We meet here and God’s just so good. His presence is so wonderful!

Me: I remember, before you moved, you talked about wanting to build that place.

Bill: Or something like it, because churches for the most part, always lack room. Most church buildings are multiuse. I just wanted a place that was strictly his, where his presence could be here. There wouldn’t necessarily be socials here. It’s a place of his presence.

It always was a dream of mine. When we moved here, there was a concrete slab on the ground. I didn’t know what to do with it. So, I started asking the Lord about it. Two years later, we’ve got this building that houses the presence of the Lord. It’s amazing actually.

Me: Did you build it?

Bill: I put about 60% of the work into it. I had about 40% assistance and help from others that actually knew what they were doing. And it took two years.

Me: That’s good.

Bill: Yep.

Well, going back to the soaking topic, or experiencing God; let’s just call it that. Back to the experiencing God side of things. If you were to talk to someone, it doesn’t matter their age, young or older people who have never experienced God; they’ve heard about him, but they haven’t really met him, or not very deeply anyway. Say they’re hungry for that. What would you tell a person like that to do, in order to position themselves to encounter God, to experience God?

Bill: Well, I know for me because I’m wired towards physical touch… I would say, seek out people who do the presence of the Lord, or ministries that carry the presence of the Lord. For most people, their first encounters with the presence (I’m not saying all people but for most); their encounters with the presence of the Lord happen during worship. They’ll go to a service, or a meeting, and they’ll feel something that they know is not them. Some people call it goosebumps. Other people, experience different signals of God’s presence.

Photo by Avery Nielsen-Webb on Pexels.com

Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water, the Bible says. A lot of times you’ll feel peace deep on the inside of you. Part of it is recognizing his presence. Always presence is related to peace. You can’t have his presence without peace. That’s a real safe understanding of the presence of God.

When I started to feel his presence on the inside of me…. Now people sometimes struggle with that word feel. I guess you got to get over it. We are created with spirit, soul, and body. Every part of us was God’s idea. And so, you and I were meant to experience the presence of God.

Part of it is building a faith that believes it is the will of God for you to experience God. There’s a lot of things that I could share from the word that can help facilitate that, but we’re limited in time. The key, I think, is something I remember F.F. Bosworth saying, “Faith begins where the will of God is known.”

You must first believe that God really wants you to experience him. We have a book that we give out everywhere we go. It’s all about experiencing him. My wife, also, wrote a book on learning how to experience God. There are areas of intimacy where simple little practical tools to learn how to experience God can be helpful. He wants so badly to talk to each one of us. Matter of fact, he’s always talking to us, but we’ve just not turned the dial on the tuner to be able to hear because, in general, initially we don’t really believe the God of universe wants to talk to us. We think, “Why would he want to spend time with me?”

A lot of things that have happened in my life have occurred because of encounters with God. It’s where I’ve experienced something significant that changed everything. And so, I encourage people initially, to go places, and be with people that carry a heart to experience God’s presence. A corporate gathering is typically where people will experience him for the first time. That doesn’t limit him to only that, but it does help folks who want to learn how to experience God.

Think of the Bible. We always say, “What is the Bible? It’s the word of God.” And that is true. But if you look at it, the Bible is a bunch of stories about people experiencing God. It is all about experiencing him. And I think once you’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good, something on the inside of you won’t let go….

Me: Bill, do you happen to have the titles, or even the book itself that you could put up to the camera? (He holds it up.)

The title reads, “Always Loved; You are God’s Treasure, not His Project.” The author is Brent Lokker.

Bill: That’s our favorite book. We give that away everywhere. This is my wife’s book. (He holds it up.)

Me: “Intimate Life Lessons,” by Linda Boone. Can people order those on Amazon if they want?

Bill: Probably not “Intimate Life Lessons.” You have to go to our website for that, which is encounterhislove.com.

Me: Didn’t even know you had a website. That’s great!

Bill: Yeah. You can order it there. I’ll package it up and send it out, for that particular book. Yeah. Like I said, I’m probably going to box up a bunch of books for you, so you can give some to your Nepali friends and so you can have some.

Me: That’s very generous. Thank you.

Well, we were talking about how people can experience God through their love language, and you said probably your top love language is feeling. Do you have any examples of what it’s like for somebody with a different love language to experience God?

Bill: Well, if you describe the five love languages, you’ve got: gifts, words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, and acts of service. Obviously with physical touch, it’s my sense of feel of the presence of God. It took me a while to realize, when I felt the presence of the Lord, that was him loving me. The simplicity of that. When I sense and feel that presence, not just read about it scripturally. I can quote the scripture, “He’ll never leave me or forsake me,” but to actually feel and experience that presence: it’s him loving me.

It’s not hard to see his love. You can use the experience of Jesus at his baptism as an example. There you can see aspects of those five love languages. What did the Father say to the Son? “You are my Son in whom I’m well pleased.” He then had the Holy Spirit come on him as a dove. Jesus felt something. He heard something. Those were keys, I believe, to set the pace for his ministry.

Jesus had to hear that. It wasn’t about ministry. He loves him. It wasn’t about ministry when Jesus experienced his Father’s presence. It was about the fact, that’s how the Father felt about his Son. The words “beloved son” means to be loved. So, you can see some of those kinds of things. That’s affirmation, hearing the words, the words of affirmation.

Me: I’m just thinking about the dove descending. It’s an example of the gift-giving love language. The Father spoke an encouraging word.

Bill: Yeah. But also, Jesus felt that presence, and so there’s touch in there.

I have another teaching, when it comes to our basic needs as human beings, that fits even more readily into that whole relationship Jesus had with the father, that we see exampled in the in the baptism. I think it was Bill Johnson who said perfect theology is Jesus. Look at Jesus’s life. You want to know what perfect theology is? Look at his life. You can get pretty much every pattern that exists by looking at the life of Jesus.

This is a primary thing: many are focused so much on Jesus (which is a good thing) but who did Jesus focus on? If you look at the New Testament, the Father. Jesus didn’t come to reveal Jesus’s will. Jesus came to reveal the Father, the will of the Father, to show what the Father was like. And so, the destination, as it says in John 14, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And later Phillip is saying, “Show us the father and it’ll be good enough for us.” But really, Jesus is going, “Phillip, Phillip, dude, when you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” So, the essence of this whole thing that we’re walking is, Jesus never meant for you just to focus in on him. He meant for you to see who the Father was like, what he’s like, and how crazy he is about who you are. So that you could be the son or the daughter that he wants you to become. But that only comes by knowing and hearing and understanding his love.

So, endeavoring to come into a place, like I said, a lot of it’s keyed to being around people who carry his presence and his love. We were never meant to walk alone. We’re to be fathered and mothered in the kingdom. You know, finding those people who will actually disciple us and walk with us, and father and mother us into the things of God.

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Link to Part 1: https://firestarterforjesus.com/2025/11/18/experiencing-the-fathers-love-with-bill-boone-part-1-crisis-encounters/

Link to Bil Boone’s website: https://www.encounterhislove.com/

Experiencing the Father’s Love: Crisis Encounters, Part 1 of an Interview with Bill Boone

November 18, 2025November 30, 2025 / Fire Starter for Jesus / 2 Comments

Me: Hi, I’m Mary, “Fire Starter for Jesus,” for online publishing. Welcome. I’m glad you’re reading this post. Consider watching while you read.

Me: Good morning.

Bill: Yeah. Hi, Mary.

Me: I am here with my friend Bill whom I met at Seattle Revival Center a bunch of years ago.

Bill: It’s been a while, probably ten years at least.

Me: Yeah, at least. Bill was leading a soaking prayer class at the time.

Bill, when I was in your class, we met in a couple of different spaces, maybe more, maybe three. Sometimes it was in the prayer room and sometimes it was up in the sanctuary. (People were laying on the chairs, bringing blankets and pillows.) Sometimes there was another room near the prayer room downstairs where we were meeting. So, over the years I experienced you leading “Soaking” as well as doing some Saturday morning, even all-day Saturday teaching seminars, on different topics that were related to developing one’s relationship with God.

You did a lot of leading in different ways. I appreciate you and your ministry and the spirit that you carry; the kindness and the gentleness that you lead with, and the way you help people encounter Jesus Christ. And I thought it would be good for the people reading to have a chance to meet you in this way and hear something about your story; how you began this journey of drawing close to God and then helping other people learn how to encounter God. So, would you like to tell your story?

Bill: Sure. Thanks Mary. I met Jesus in 1981. My relationship began out of crisis, dramatic crisis. I cried out to God. It wasn’t a deep commitment. He didn’t become Lord. I was just scared, simply scared, and I had no way out.

Initially I don’t honestly remember feeling anything during those first couple years. It wasn’t until later, in crisis mode, that I finally made a decision for Christ. That was where it began. It was probably around July of 1982, that I just said, “If you can do something with this life, do something.” I felt absolutely nothing.

About a year later after hanging out a lot with Christian brothers, all of a sudden I felt something! Something became real on the inside of me, which began a real journey and a quest to experience this person that was so distant.

I had grown up in a Lutheran church, and I had some perspective of God, but I didn’t know him. Yet I was craving for more of a relationship with God.

About a year or so after that, I was crying out to God, “What do I do with this thing, this relationship?”

Someone handed me a structured way of developing prayer, which I needed. I needed structure. I had known no structure most of my life. I had never held a job for more than three months. I was a mess in the military. Nothing was stable in my life. And so, I got handed this ministry that had structure at some level, making it possible for me to begin this relationship, pretty much one-sided, but it established me in a lifestyle of spending time with God that I’ve been able to maintain for the last 44 years.

It began to open up in me such a drive to know God. So, I spent gobs and gobs and gobs of time in the word. I spent gobs and gobs of time listening to ministries that helped establish me in a relationship with God. For the next 10 years I was grounded in God’s word. That was probably one of the most important things, to get grounded in God’s word. So, I had a sense of security and safety; knowing what and where I was going was focused on God. It was helpful during that season.

Probably about three, maybe even four years into this this initial relationship with God, I started to experience the presence of God. That’s kind of like hook and sinker for me.

There is a ministry out there by a guy, Chapman, called Five Love Languages. He talks about five different ways people are wired to be loved, and what really activates knowing that you are loved. One of those love languages which was a primary for me, I discovered, was physical touch. Without realizing until later, I just had this insatiable hunger for God’s presence.

So, late at night I’d have my pillow up against my face and I’d listen to old cassette tapes while wearing headphones. I would be worshiping the Lord as loud as I could, with my face in the pillow, and the presence of God would show up. I would have these amazing encounters with God!

That set the stage for my passion and quest. Who is this? Who is this presence? Who is this person? The word tells us God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Well, I wondered, what does all that mean? I had this quest to know. For several years, I found this presence in the things that I did. Yet I still, inside, felt very empty. There was something missing. I was searching for something that I couldn’t seem to acquire, even with all the time I would spend praying in the Spirit and time in the mornings with the Lord every day. I still felt there was something inside that was missing.

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It keyed off in 1994. God started to pour his Spirit out in Toronto. I was just gloriously impacted and freed and delivered of a lot of stuff that I’d carried all of my life. I think the Lord told me 20 years of guilt and shame were instantly wiped from my life during that encounter. But even afterward there was still something missing.

About 12 years later I was in a series of meetings in Canada when the Father himself met me. I had been a Christian already 26 years. The experience I had been looking for all my life, I had just now found. Before that time, I was a very driven, hard person. My wife, Linda, would have said that I was really, really, hard. Hard to live with until that time. I had an intense passion for God, there was no question about that. I had incredible hunger for God during all those years. But it wasn’t until that encounter with the Father and knowing how much he loved me… that was the simple message from that encounter, he loved me. And all I could do was cry because I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing at that moment. I couldn’t believe that there was anybody who could love me this much.

Even though I had such a quest and a hunger for the presence of the Lord before that time, that is when the revelation of soaking prayer became a real thing to me. All I wanted to do was to soak, spend time, absorb, embrace, drink, feed on this incredible love that the Father had for me.

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com

As a kid growing up, I never knew a father’s love. I never knew, really, a mother’s love. I saw… and during a divorce, there was all sorts of chaos. I became an orphan in my own home. So, I had no connection with real parents at all. I remember high school years were just horrible! Horribly alone! I’m surprised I didn’t intend to commit suicide during those times because I was so alone. So, I got into lots of drugs, lots of pornography, lots of anything that could somehow numb this pain that was on the inside of me.

But at that moment, in April 2006 when I had the encounter of the Father, something all came together. At that point in time. All of a sudden it was like, “Oh my God, I finally found you!” All I wanted to do for years is live in this experience of him loving me. That became the primary thing and largely since that time, to know that he loves me.

I have a particular scripture that I love: 1 John 4:16, “And we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.”

The discovery for me here was: 1) Know by experience. 2) And believe. Now, I believed God loved me before then, but I had never known the experience of it in a deep intimate way. The focus was not on me loving him; it was a focus on him loving me. This verse says, “God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.” If you see the context there, he’s talking about us abiding in his love for us.

That is so key to understand. It’s all about him loving us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his son.” It’s all one purpose, one focus, from the beginning, and it goes on to eternity. It’s all about being loved by God because from there comes all the fruit. I remember a pastor leader spoke on this a number of years ago. His name was Jack Frost. He said, “The revelation of the Father’s love for you and I is the bookshelf where all the rest of the books rest!”

So everything’s founded on the fact that he loves us. James Jordan said, “It’s learning to live in the ongoing experience of him loving you.” That’s key. You want to know about the meaning of John Chapter 15, the vine and the branches and the bearing fruit passage? True fruit flows from an understanding of him loving you. Also, it’s in 1 John Chapter 4, “We love because he first loved us.” We know that the first commandment is love God. Love our neighbors as ourselves. But you can’t give something that you haven’t received. You can’t walk in something you don’t know. And so, this becomes the essence of what soaking prayer is about: learning just how to receive.

He is more excited and hungry to spend time with you and I than we could possibly imagine. So, when we soak in prayer and become still before him, he becomes the God who loves us on a personal level. “Be still and know that I’m God.” Learning to be still in a receiving mode gives you the ability to encounter him. And you know what? We are built to encounter God! It really begins from a place of intimacy, where he comes to us and reveals himself. And you know what? Our lives become an ongoing, one after another, encounter of him. First and foremost, him loving us. Then we have the grace of God to love others and do the ministry that he has for us.

So soaking prayer is simply learning how to receive. When you’re an infant, the first few years you don’t give a whole lot, except the kinds of things that come out of your body that you really don’t want, you know? As a child, we learn how to receive. Soaking prayer is just learning how to be a child again and just receive in simplicity, the heavenly Father’s love, the love that he has for us because that’s how it’s all built. So anyway, that’s my two cents and the short version of my testimony.

There’re so many things we’ve seen, so many miracles. We’ve seen people healed. We’ve seen people delivered. We’ve seen all sorts of things in a group setting. And we still to this day we do Tuesday nights. We do a soaking prayer because we value learning how to receive from God.

Part 2 will be coming soon. Check back or sign up to receive notifications. Consider sending this to someone you know.

Links:
Bill’s website: https://www.encounterhislove.com/

Entire video interview: https://youtu.be/KewCM5SGPlI

Reviving Lives: The Impact of Jesus Coffee House in Spokane, an Interview with Linda Meissner

October 16, 2025November 18, 2025 / Fire Starter for Jesus / Leave a comment

Me: We are here in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I am with my precious and dear friend, Linda Meissner. We’ve known each other since Linda returned from Europe. What year was that?

Linda: 2013.

Me: So, twelve years. We used to work in ministry together, in Tacoma particularly, doing a whole variety of things. Linda and her family moved to Idaho during the time that COVID hit.

Linda: Yes.

Me: They moved to continue to serve the Lord, because everything they did was stopped by the government. They came to a place where they could continue their various ministries. Linda’s son Dan is a gifted musician. He was giving music lessons that couldn’t continue. Altogether, we were starting a church in Tacoma. Suddenly, we weren’t supposed to meet. So, it just got awkward, painful and difficult. So, Dan, leading his family, decided to move here (not to Coeur d’Alene) but to Post Falls, Idaho. Linda set up a brand-new coffee house in the Spokane area. Dan went looking for God’s opportunity for him in various places. What has come out of that search is a new school called River Tech in Post Falls. It’s been running for about how long now?

Linda: I think this is the fourth year. We’re very thankful for this school. We’ve seen the hand of God. Beginning with nothing, God showed us the location. Then after putting up some posters for the idea, God has really blessed it. Especially going into the fourth year. We have 77 students and seven teachers. We’re seeing not only academically, the youth growing and learning, but also spiritually. We’ve seen broken families come back together. My granddaughter Evelyn (who’s 13) and her friend have been very evangelistic. They’ve gotten about 13 kids from the school to attend the youth group in our church. It’s a new church plant here in Post Falls called Sun City. Luke, my oldest my oldest grandson at 19; he is a full-time teacher in our school, River Tech. And he’s very active in the new church plant, also worship team, youth group, etc.

Me: He’s amazing. Went on a mission trip this summer, right, this last summer?

Linda: Right. He went to Africa.

Me: Lake Victoria, right?

Linda: Yes, in Uganda. Lake Victoria is gigantic. Out in that lake there are many islands. Luke, together with a little team, went out to those islands and preached the gospel. It was very effective, and they were really happy to have that team. Luke plays nearly all the instruments. He had his guitar, and they sang to the kids. They found witchcraft there. They had to pray the prayer-of-faith and power to get that out of the way.

Me: I bet he has some great stories.

Linda: Yeah, he does. Now he’s planning to take a mission trip to Mexico around Thanksgiving time. He really cares about the people. He helps me at the coffee house a lot. And the coffee house, of course, is for the homeless and for the poor. I’m glad that he has a heart for the people that Jesus has a heart for. So, it’s wonderful!

Me: Let’s tell the people about the coffee house a bit more.

Linda: Well, God is great! When we came here, I didn’t know anybody and had nothing except our own stuff. The first thing that happened was that God miraculously gave us a location in a church that didn’t require any rent. I knew one person. That one person introduced me to another person and that’s how it went. Without having a team, or knowing anybody, one by one God bought brought volunteers or missionaries to help with the people in the street.

Spokane is a desperate city with 2,000 homeless and fentanyl is the killer here. We had nearly 400 people die on the street last year from fentanyl. We also have a lot of suicide here. They jump over the Spokane Bridge. I talked to a man whose job it was to throw dead bodies out of the Spokane River. He said he pulled one out, one or two out, every day. And now fentanyl has even a worse chemical that they can add to it. I don’t remember its name, but it’s a fast killer.

We have a great burden for these people. God loves them and we love them. God miraculously not only gave us a team, but he has given us two Jesus vans that hold 15 passengers. We have two drivers and two co-pilots. They drive to the very worst locations where the homeless are laying in the street, on drugs, and it’s most awful. They drive there, pick up a van load, and bring them to the coffee house. God has expanded us so that we were serving hot meals, and donuts and coffee, and bottles of water.

Friday before last we fed 200. Last Friday we fed about 150. There aren’t very many places now in Spokane that feed the poor. So, we’re really needed. We’ve added clothes to it. I didn’t have any way to get clothes, but miraculously people bring by bags of clothes, blankets, sleeping bags, and shoes. One family bought us a whole big box of socks from Amazon. Whenever the clothes get low, don’t you worry, somebody comes to the door bringing a new bunch of clothes.

Me: He’s also been bringing the food to you.

Linda: Oh, he brings the food to us, too! We don’t have to buy very much food. We have a different cook every Friday that cooks three big oven pans full of food. But that’s not enough because we’ve doubled in number since December. So, the church, Full Gospel Mission for All Nations, Pastor Steve Cannon; they also cook food on Friday. So, we have different cooks from the north, south, east and west that cook for it. Then we have the church also making food. And we get this food free from Dream Center, which is a terrific church and a terrific rehab place.

I used to buy the donuts; but Dan and I get these four dozen donuts free from The Dream Center. And God just provides. Also, people bring by things like chips, or a cake that they’ve made, or a pie that they’ve made. Yeah. It’s a wonderful feeling to give!

Me: So, the people are picked up in a van. The driver takes them to the church where you have the coffee house laid out with tables, an area for clothes, an area for food, and up front you have worship.

Linda: Yes. But we’ve had to enlarge our facility. The pastor is so good. He has a folding wall between our location and the church sanctuary. I kind of grin, because at the beginning he wouldn’t allow one soul in the sanctuary. But now, when he sees what God has done with the different individuals and how many there, he lets us fold down that wall. We have moved the clothes, the music, and the microphone into the sanctuary. This gives us two more long tables for people to have space to eat.

Me: I get it. So, you’ve reoriented the focus from this way to that way. It’ll be fun to see it tomorrow night when I go there and check out all the changes.

Linda: Yes. The front is still where we have a microphone, where we have terrific testimonies of people that have been living in the street a long time, been on drugs, you know, been in jail. They tell how God has delivered them, set them free. They volunteer in the coffee house, telling people about Jesus. We always have someone bring the word of God. I’m really insistent that we give an altar call in which we ask everyone to be quiet.

I ask everyone to bow their heads. I ask, “Is this the day that you will make a change, that you’ll invite Jesus in your heart? If you need prayer, raise your hand.” And then several raise their hand every week.

Me: And so, what happens? What happens when they’re ready to get off the street?

Linda: Yeah. Well, first I say, “Now I’m going to ask you to do something very courageous. You’ve raised your hand, but now I want you to come up here in front and sit in a chair in front of me.” And we always have four to eight or whatever. They come up. They sit in a chair and the Spirit of the Lord touches them really double heavy. Most of them cry. And I have a counselor work with each one. I shut the whole coffee house down as far as feeding and the clothes are concerned. I ask all the volunteers to move around the homeless, to meet a friend, and talk to them about Jesus.

So, we have those eight in front getting prayer. Then we have different ones that didn’t come up getting prayer. At that point in the coffee house, it’s very wow! The conviction of God is very strong. The love of God is very strong. It’s a marvelous thing to see!

Then, workers are down around the tables and up in front with the chairs; they’re talking to the people individually. They’re able to ask the men, “Are you living in the street?” And they’ll say yes. Then we’re so happy for the Lord’s Ranch and the Director, Janice Simili. Any there who say, “We want off the street, and we want rehab, and we want to follow God.” The Lord’s Ranch comes down with a big van every Friday with men to help us with security and to evangelize. If the homeless men want that change, they can just go with the van 40 miles north to a beautiful place where there’s animals and fresh air and Bible study every day, clean clothes, and food three times a day.

The truth is, not every single one we send up there, stays. But even when half of them stay, it’s still a win-win. The others that say they want to go back down to the street, they’ve got in the back of their mind; there is a place I can go… Often then, they make a second choice to go back, they stay. We’re so thankful for the Lord’s Ranch. That’s a good solution for the men.

We also have women that are weeping. Their condition in the streets of Spokane is even worse. They’re being used by the men in the street. They have to sell their bodies to get money to get food. Some of them are trafficked. They have to obey their boss, whoever’s got them. We have these women too; they weep before the Lord, and they cry out to us, and tell us their situation.

I had a person tell me this week and it broke my heart. They said, “Oh, well those people are just lazy.”

No, no, no, no, no! Each one of them has a story. And their story will break your heart. They’re living in great trauma: No dad, no home, parents – alcoholics, parents – drug addicts, no one to take care of them even from a young age, on drugs. Their stories are just heartbreaking, and the women’s stories are especially heartbreaking to me.

Excuse me while I tell you that it’s very heartbreaking because we have no place to send the women. After they’ve prayed and really met God for two hours at the coffee house, then they have to walk out the door. The van takes them back down to that street where they were laying, and its hell!

Well, I can testify that some of them have made it even without going to rehab. We’ve had many make it and go to the church where we’re located. Others that come back every week, the coffee house being like their church; they have pulled themselves through. They look tremendously better, comparing the first time we met them with three months later. Yeah, but we have no rehab for them.

And you say, “Linda, are there no women’s rehabs?” I’m telling you just the raw truth. Yes, there’s a Union Gospel Mission. They have a good rehab. And Teen Challenge has a good rehab. The Dream Center has a good rehab. Salvation Army has a good rehab. Well, you say, then what’s the problem?

The problem is, there’s such a long distance between where we’ve picked them up, from laying in the street on drugs, from bringing them to the coffee house. Now they’re going to choose a new life. They’ve still got drugs in their veins. They’re not good enough.

Me: What do you mean?

Linda: They’re not good enough to go to these good Christian rehabs! They will not take them unless they’ve been drug-free for such a long time. They can’t smoke. They can’t use their phone. They must have recommendations. They must have an ID, which is good. I’m I mean, I’m for it all. But our kids that just come in that night to our coffee house, they don’t have that.

We need a transition place, or we need a down-traffic place. Well, yes, there is a down-traffic place in Spokane, but the report I get from everyone is, it’s full of drug addicts. I mean they don’t get any help there. Drugs are everywhere in that place. They’ve got to go to a place where they can down traffic, where it’s clean. We desperately need this place. We thought that we had found one this time, that time, that time, and that time. But no. None of them ever worked.

Me: So, it needs to be a unique place where people can come while they’re detoxing from the drugs, where they won’t be able to get more drugs while they’re there, and where they can get some help getting ID. What else would they need, to be able to get into one of these other places? They need ID. They need to be drug free. Is there anything else?

Linda: They’re not going to be able to smoke. That’s not so bad. Just a few things, like that, a recommendation.

Me: So, somebody who’s good at getting people free of addictions would need to be able to run a place like this, and have the skills to know how to work with these people, and keep them safe.

Linda: if they’ve been trafficked, keep them safe from the men that have been using them and the temptations that are in the street. It’s a transition house, actually. If we could get a transition house, as soon as they go through it, now they’re free of drugs. Now we help them get ID. Now we can recommend them, and da da da da da. Then they could fit into the Dream Center or into the Union Gospel Mission or into other places like that.

Me: Many years ago, back in the 60s when you were working with David Wilkersonson in New York City, didn’t you do that with that ministry? I mean, you’ve seen that happen successfully, correct?

Linda: Yes. We did it right at Teen Challenge. We worked the streets several hours a day, six days a week, and when we found one that was on drugs, we could bring them home with us. We had a special room in Teen Challenge, the detox room. We had good Christian music in the detox room. It was comfortable. We had different ones of us on Dave Wilkerson’s team. One or two of us would stay by their side. For example, if you’re on heroin in 72 hours, you would have broken the habit basically and then of course you have to be taken care of after that. But we did that right among us. But nobody will do that here.

Me: Do you know why?

Linda: No. We thought we could try it. I mean Dream Center’s been really good to us. They give us the food. They thought they would try it. They took…. They tried it; taking them from our place, the coffee house, over to their place, to their women’s center. But it didn’t work out positive for them because our women were so.… No, it just didn’t work. And finally, they had to say to us, we just can’t do this.

But the pastor there, a youth pastor, Rosie Peterson, she’s fantastic! She has spoken with me now. And I have another couple that work… I have many couples, but a certain couple that works at the coffee house; they have worked at Union Gospel Mission for almost 39 years. So, they’re really professional with the homeless. We’ve talked, “We’ve got to get our own place. We have to get our own transition house.”

The problem is, when we found a place, they wanted me to run it; to put it through my nonprofit, Faithful Five. But I am already booked to the full. I have so many people around me. So many people calling me and texting me; so many people to take care of, because I have 30 people on the team. I have their phone numbers, and I keep track of them. I talk to them and help them through their problems. And then we have a whole bunch of the first-fruits, many newly saved ones. And I get to have their phone number and help them through their situations.

And then just people calling: “It’s about my son. Can you help him? He’s in the street and da, da, da, da!” I’m in a full-time ministry right now. And I can’t be overseeing a transition place; just can’t do it. And I don’t have the money to do it. But this prayer which we’ve been praying…. All the other prayers, they get answered. Here comes the food. Here comes the clothes. Here comes the singer. Here comes the workers. Here comes the vans. Here comes the people to drive the vans. Here comes the security guys. Everything we’ve needed to run this thing. And it’s a big thing now. But no answer, no answer for the women! And winter’s coming.

This really breaks my heart. The winter’s coming! Its not fun to sleep out in the street when the winter’s coming. Spokane has closed down so many shelters. There’s not enough shelters at all! We need 1,500 more shelters to cover for Spokane.

Me: You mean 1,500 beds?

Linda: Yes. We have very few shelters. The city has not been good. That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s been closing down shelters instead of increasing the shelters and closing down the places where they can get fed food. Shalom feeds them. We feed them.

Me: Has the city been good for you, working with you in this feeding project that you’re doing?

Linda: Well, I have not had much contact with them until recently. They began to hear about it; that the Jesus Coffee House is picking these people up and bringing them in and giving them food, but we are not on their official list of helps.

Me: I see.

Linda: But we are going to knock that one, just automatically, because our first fentanyl addict was living in a hell and I’ve been working with her now for two and a half years. She’s been clean and she’s very well spoken, you know. Now we have other fentanyl addicts and other jailbirds.

Me: And I think I’ve met her, that one.

Linda: Oh, yeah. Well, she’s really strong now compared to them. And she works, she gets her money from a place that helps the homeless find housing. God’s been so good on housing. When they really pray to Jesus, he gets them housing, even without the rehab. So, God is working even without the rehab. We see many of them getting their housing, getting a job.

Me: But what you’re saying is there’s still a need.

Linda: Oh, there’s a gigantic need. I I don’t understand why God hasn’t answered this need. I’m just being personal. He’s no doubt working on something that just hasn’t appeared yet. And we say, “That’s great God, but hurry up, the winter’s coming!”

This is a beautiful sunny day here in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, North Idaho. And it’s not bad to sleep out here in a sleeping bag; but I’m telling you, the winter winds. They say we’re going to have a tough winter this winter. Um yeah, we need help.

Me: And if you have a sleeping bag, but you’re on the street and it rains, you’ve got a wet sleeping bag.

Linda: That’s it. That’s absolutely right.

Me: Wet clothes, no dryer, no roof.

Linda: The thing here is not just to classify them as the homeless. Talk to them! I encourage you. Meet some of them. Talk to them. Ask them, “How did you end up here?” Some of them had nice houses. One of our ladies had a nice job in the city. She has four children.

Ask, “How did you get here?” It’s a heartbreaking story; step by step, by step, how they got down there. It could happen to anybody. Yeah, I love those people and I’m not ashamed of it. And beside the rehab part of it, we’re doing what God wants us to do.

Jesus said, “I was hungry, you fed me. I was thirsty, you gave me a drink. I was naked, you clothed me.” So just on that level, we’re hitting the mark according to Jesus’ teachings. And then, as you’ve heard, we are discipling them and seeing them change.

I sat at the church where the coffee house is located a couple Sundays ago. I visited them. I sat in the back row, and looked around. Wow! I looked around. He’s been in jail. He’s been on drugs. They’ve been in jail. I counted 10 people sitting in the church pew that Sunday that I had met when they were in hell, in jail, on drugs, da, da, da, da, da! All of them were sitting there praising the Lord. That was so fantastic, I tell you!

So, I’m enthused about what we do and it’s growing! First, we were just our team with the coffee house. But now many other ministries and churches are helping us in manpower or by bringing clothes. or food. We’re six, maybe eight. We’re seeing a great love among the brethren. No division, about what denomination; we never ask that. It’s whether you have a burden for the lost and you want to help Jesus put some clothes on these people. We all work together in great love. The street people always tell us when they get back in the van to go home, “Oh, we felt so much love. Oh, we just love that place!” I mean, they love us. And they’re spreading the word. They’re spreading the news that we’re located there.

Me: That’s great! That’s beautiful.

Well, for our people who are watching this interview, there’s at least a couple of applications, if not more, to the story. One of them is, there may be somebody out there who would like to help by providing the transitional housing for women who need it in Spokane. Somebody who has the skills and would come and be a part of the answer to that.

There may be somebody else who has financing who would like to help purchase a property that could be used in this situation. There may be somebody out there working for the Spokane government who knows how to get through the legal loopholes and how to guide the ministry toward making this happen. Those are all really practical things that apply directly to what you’re doing.

But there’s also the general story that Linda has of this passion on her heart; how she came here to the Spokane, Idaho border area. She started this ministry to reach people who need it, and God has provided every single thing she’s needed; including a place without being charged any rent, including workers, including food and clothing. God has built this step by step. I have seen you do this more than once.

She did this in the King County area, too. More than once.

So, you may have some sort of vision on your mind, passion God has given you. It may be in the area of the homeless. It may be in some entirely different area of society. But you may be thinking, I want to do this… but I don’t have the resources. And Linda’s example is stepping out. As she steps out, God has been bringing solution after solution, over and over again, for years, to meet the need because he’s called her to do this.

Linda: Yes.

Me: If God has called you to do the vision that’s on your heart, then step out and begin moving forward in it. And may God bring to you all the resources you need in order to establish what he wants to do through you on planet Earth. We all have a purpose. We all have a destiny. We all have work to do to bring heaven to earth in a greater way. Every single person was created with a purpose, including you. And so, we want to encourage you to live for the Lord and serve him. Be blessed. And see the mighty eternal reward you will build in heaven that no one can steal from you or take from you, as you choose to lay your life down for him.

There’s a scripture that says something about how if we want to save our lives, we need to lose them. If we lose our lives for Christ’s sake, then we will find them. It’s this dynamic principle of the kingdom: Live for yourself; it doesn’t work out. Live for the Lord and vistas open before you because God is on your side to help you. You’ll get to know him better in the process of serving him in whatever capacity he’s called you, because it becomes a supernatural thing.

Linda: Amen. I’d like to say that if you would like to reach me, I am on Facebook, Linda Meissner, and Messenger. One way you can help, I have a few sponsors and that helps me with buying the utensils, coffee cups, coffee creamer; all the things we need every week. You can help us financially. If you ask me on Facebook Messenger, I can tell you how. My nonprofit is called Faithful Five. You can help that way. Also, I get many letters on Facebook. You may have a son or a grandchild that’s in a situation, or maybe my counsel, or maybe I can help you. So, don’t be afraid to reach out to me. Yeah, we could connect.

Me: Very good.

Linda: We did it!

Me: We did! So, go, go, go, go, and serve the Lord!

Linda: Yes! Amen. Amen. Amen.

Me: Bye!

__________________________________________________

Note: Pictures are from the ministry, websites, or from pixabay.com.

RESOURCES

Websites:

Linda Meissner’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/linda.meissner.7

Faithful Five Nonprofit: https://www.faithfulfive.org/

The Lord’s Ranch, Spokane: http://www.worldharvestmissions.org/current/lords-ranch.html

River Tech School: https://www.rivertechschool.com/

Video playlists of the time Linda and I worked together in Western Washington:

Evangelism Team Training by Linda Meissner – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3omWYhSBhvnCyOxFUyqwB3bxRQW_yBTr

Catacombs at Tacoma Faith, Playlist – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3omWYhSBhvkhV_OlscHIuxCyzuYcsOIk

Tacoma Gospel Choir’s First Performance Ever, Playlist – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3omWYhSBhvm6J4b8hpMwqhIpeyfVtduH

Testimonies, Preaching, Etc @ Jesus People Coffee House with Linda Meissner, Playlist – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3omWYhSBhvltqD-bLt-PZcg2QmicTN9r

Prayers and Prophecies @ Jesus People Coffee House with Linda Meissner, Playlist – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3omWYhSBhvnCyOxFUyqwB3bxRQW_yBTr

Worship by the Evening @ Jesus People Coffee House, Playlist – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3omWYhSBhvlKElisit86RESvLpPaX2pL

Heidi Skagen’s Journey: From Loss to Lavender Farm Success

September 5, 2025November 18, 2025 / Fire Starter for Jesus / Leave a comment

Listen to Heidi’s interview on YouTube, or read this shortened summary here, or both!

You’re about to be introduced to Heidi Skagen. She has a new business; it’s the fulfillment of a long-term dream of hers. Hopefully this story of her dream becoming a reality will inspire you to embrace your big dreams for the Kingdom of God. You are an influencer whatever you do and wherever you go. You were created with talents and a purpose from God. You can use your career to serve Jesus and bring glory to him, while piling up eternal rewards in heaven! Maybe her journey will inspire you to trust God and take a leap forward in your endeavors! Perhaps you’ll be motivated to try something new or find a different way of doing what you’re currently involved with that brings greater glory to God.

Heidi’s Story:

Me: Heidi, you have created a lavender farm here on your property. Yes. What inspired you to do that?

Heidi: This has been a dream of mine for over 30 years. And frankly, I thought it had died. The reason I thought so was because in 2006 my husband was tragically killed. I had five children. I just thought, ‘I’ve got to get a job.’ And so, that dream of someday getting property to create this lavender herb farm… I just thought, well, that’s a dead dream. So, I went back to school, got my landscape design degree, and a c certification in horticulture, (ornamental horticulture) and started a business. I ran a landscape design business for many years.

Then in 2021, I moved out here to Kent, to this beautiful 10 acres. I got remarried to my husband David. Our living room overlooked this huge field. And I was standing there one day; it was like a little spark, I think the Lord was putting a little spark within. Maybe that dream is not dead. So, I asked David, “Could I plant something in that field?” And he’s so sweet. He said, “Sure.”

I don’t know if he had any idea what I had in mind or how serious I was about it, but I was serious. I immediately started designing it and implementing it. I realized this dream of a lavender herb farm had been resurrected. You know there’s timing for everything under heaven. So, this is it.

Me: So, when did you start preparing the field for your lavender farm which, by the way, is right back here.

In 2022, I started implementing it. The first six months of that year I spent coming up with a design. I wanted it in the shape of a labyrinth. I didn’t want one that I found in a book or something. I wanted my own unique one. So, I studied lots and lots of labyrinths and came up with my own design.

Me: So, for those who don’t know what is a labyrin? It’s hard even to say…. Go ahead.

Heidi: A labyrinth. Thank you. A labyrinth is an intricate pathway. It’s not a maze because it doesn’t have dead ends and you can’t get lost. As long as you’re going forward, you are on a journey to get to the destination. And it labyrinths have been around for centuries.… Cathedrals would put these labyrinths in, and they are symbolic of going on a journey to grow closer to the Lord. I have created mine because ultimately that’s what I want. I want people to feel drawn to the Lord without ever having to go step inside of a church or hear a sermon. They can go out there and feel the Lord’s presence without even realizing it. And it’s a place to meditate, to pray, to think about life; and it represents a journey….

Me: So, this year you opened your field for the very first time. Before that, it was preparation, right? It was clearing the land and bringing in soil and then ordering a multitude of plants and planting them… correct?

Heidi: Yes. In the garden world, there’s this little poem. It says that when you’re planting your garden, “first year it sleeps, second year it creeps, third year it leaps.” So, the first year I don’t know if they got that much sleep, because right after I got the plants in (they were tiny)…. I had a young friend that wanted to get married here on the property. So, we hosted a wedding here, and then (later) we had a concert. So, that was our first year.

The second year, amazingly, the lavender had grown quite a bit, almost completely covering the landscape fabric I had out there, which surprised me! So, it did more than creep, I thought. And we had another concert. I did decide to open up for one weekend, just to see what would happen and who would come. And I just put signs out on the road. I had people the whole day on both days, a constant flow of people coming just from seeing our signs. And every single one of them would comment on the peace they felt here, and the beauty they felt here, and how they couldn’t believe there was something like this in Kent! So, they were really excited about that.

This third year I opened up from June to August on Fridays and Saturdays. I just put out my signs and I put some notifications out on social media. Again, I had a constant group of people flowing through here from all over the world. That was interesting! I got to know a lot of people from the community around here, but there were people from India, from Hungary, from China, and a few others, the Ukraine. So, that was exciting!

Me: That’s amazing! Just from signs along the road.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. So, that was super fun! I was kind of … it’s coming to an end, but next year. So that was 2025. Yes.

Me: And during 2025 though you had it open on Fridays and Saturdays for a period of hours, so people could stop by. You had a table set up. You were selling some lavender-oriented things. What were those?

Heidi: Yeah, I had some linens, some candles, soaps and things I had made from the lavender buds. A lady came. (All lavender is edible, but some varieties are more desired for cooking). And so, she was excited to buy some of that to make sourdough bread. Then she brought me a couple loaves of that bread the following week. It was so good! Yeah, so that was fun to have the stand. Mainly everybody would come and do a u-pick. They would go out into the field, walk to the labyrinth and pick whatever different varieties of lavender they wanted and then I’d wrap it up for them to take home.

Me: Very nice. I also saw you had little bags that people could put lavender in. Were those for perfuming drawers or what?

Heidi: Yeah, they could make their own sachets. You can put them in your drawer or wherever you want the scent to be. I actually put mine in my pillowcase, so I smell it while I’m sleeping. It’s really great!

Me: Good idea.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. I have bees out here, too. I’m fostering some bees out in the field. The beekeeper had some products that I was able to put out. She had made them from her beeswax and stuff.

Me: Wow. Yeah. Awesome. So, tell us about the name of your farm and how you came up with it.

Heidi: That took a long time. My husband and I could never agree on anything. So, it was very frustrating. That’s probably the main reason I didn’t open last year more than just one weekend: I didn’t have a name for the farm…. And I wanted to have a name that was different from any other lavender farm. And I wanted it to have a good meaning. I wanted it to be unique to me. So finally, I was just frustrated frankly. And I thought, you know, Dr. Seuss makes up his own words. Why don’t I just make up my own word? So, I started making up my own words and I found one that I’d liked. I thought, well, I’m going to run it through Google in case it is a real word. I just want to make sure I know what it means if it is a real word. And so, I put it in. Google replies, “Did you mean Synnove?” And I looked at it. I just love how it looks even spelled out. But I wondered, do I mean Synnove? What does it mean? As it turns out, it’s a Norwegian word. It means kissed by the sun or gift from the sun, which I absolutely loved! And, when I mentioned it to David, he said, “Wow, yeah, that could work!” And I’m like, “Okay, I’m taking it.” So, I went with that word. And now I can’t even remember what my fake word was, because it led me to where I needed to go; bringing me to the right name.

Me: Excellent! So, what are your hopes for the future and what will you do during the winter?

Heidi: Well, we are in the process of doing some renovations around the farm. One of the renovations will be to add a place to do classes. And that’s what I would really like to do eventually. What I’ll probably do this winter is plan out the kind of classes I’ll do. And then next year hopefully I’ll have a place where I can hold classes throughout the year, and maybe even bring in some other artisans to teach different skills.

ME: So that would be great! You did have a craft day this summer. I came!

Heidi: Yes, that was another part of that leap. I forgot to mention that. We had the concert, and I had my open days. We also had a women’s event. It was a creative art experience where the women could go out into the labyrinth and listen to what the Lord was saying to them about how he sees them and what he calls them. Then we did a project related to that. It was impactful and fun.

Me: That was fun. The very next day, you had a concert here with a local musician and you had a huge turnout.

Heidi: Yeah, it was definitely a leap. It was a bigger turnout than any of our other concerts, so far.

Me: Yeah. And you’ve redesigned your parking area here, expanding it so more people can fit. That day of the concert, you had people going clear around here to park their cars. So, you can fit a lot of visitors here.

Heidi: Yes. Yes, we can. And that brings up one of my goals; in the future, be more streamlined with our parking arrangements. So, yeah, we’ll just see how that goes.

Me: That’s great. So, what would you like to tell the people about living life, lavender farms, or the Lord?

Heidi: …Well, one thing that’s special about this labyrinth, and it was something I had always wanted to do as a landscape designer, (but I always worked with small residential yards up in the Seattle area) I wanted to design something that could be seen in its own unique way from up above, like in an airplane…. And so, in designing this labyrinth I made it in the shape of a giant flower. So, if you were up in an airplane flying over, you’d look down and you’d see this humongous flower in the middle of this field.

And what I love about labyrinths is they’re a reminder, if you’re looking down, that life’s is a journey. When you’re in it, you smell the fragrance. You are walking forward. You hear the happy bees buzzing around you. Um, but you don’t have the big picture from up above, because you’re in it. You get to experience all this stuff. And as long as you’re going forward in life, you’re going to get to where you need to go.

And I want to leave the audience with this: If you have a dream or a goal on your heart, this is what happens in a labyrinth. You could be only one row away from that middle section, the goal of where you’re getting. You turn and the path will take you in a completely different area. It will take a lot longer now to get to that goal. You think you’re so close and then and then you turn. That happens a lot in life. We have a goal. We think we’re almost there. Then something kind of turns us in a different direction and it may take us a lot longer to get there.

But I can tell you in my experience, all those years of landscaping and planning gardens for other people, learning about plants; I am way more prepared now to be doing this farm than I would have been back in the early 2000s when me and my first husband were dreaming about something like this.

So, when the Lord puts something on your heart and it seems like it’s far away or maybe you’ve given up on it, or you feel like you should just give up on it; be in the present and ask him what he wants you to learn as you go on your journey, because you may end up revisiting that dream. That dream may be resurrected and you’ll be better prepared for it.

Me: God doesn’t waste anything.

Heidi: No, he doesn’t.

So that’s what I would want to say: Follow your dreams.

Me: Yeah. And let the Lord set the timing of your dreams and do whatever you do to bring honor and glory to him, to build his kingdom because God cares about every part of life. He cares about businesses. He cares about government. He cares about family. He cares about the church. He cares about media and entertainment, health care, and education. He cares about every sphere of life. He wants his people there being representatives of him. Somewhere in scripture it says we are ambassadors for Christ. Yeah. So, wherever you are, you’re an ambassador for the kingdom of God. And we bless you whatever your dream is and where you’re headed and what you’re doing. So thank you for watching (or reading) and God bless.

Note to the reader: This isn’t an exact transcript of the video interview, but it covers the dialogue well. If you watch YouTube, you’ll hear exactly what went on. Hope you enjoyed this.

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Forgiving for Healing ~ Letting Go of Pain

August 26, 2025November 18, 2025 / Fire Starter for Jesus / Leave a comment

Listen on YouTube while you read.

“Mercy! Forgiving when it’s Hard” covered certain misconceptions about forgiveness, misunderstandings that get in the way of our willingness to forgive. It was written primarily to help us take down strongholds of the will and strongholds in our understanding, so we will hopefully let go and take the forgiveness plunge.

This second post on forgiveness focuses more on the emotional aspect: forgiveness in situations that are loaded with heartache and trauma! As we learn how to release what we’ve been carrying around emotionally regarding specific forgiveness situations, whole memories can be redeemed. Then our emotional reactions in the present can change. No more “faking it until you make it!” Real change is accomplished by the Holy Spirit. It’s quick and easy once we decide we’re ready to let go and know how!

We release our painful emotions to God. He takes them and gives us his loving emotions in their place. We can receive deep cleansing. We can be set free, restored and made even stronger. We can give him our hurts. Then Lord can then remove ugly buttons from our hearts; buttons that get pushed and set us off in the present because of something unhealed in our past.

As we entrust him with washing out our hurts, we’re taking intimacy with God deeper, moving our relationship with him to a whole new level. We’re moving in childlike faith. We’re exposing those painful emotions associated with our memories to his tender loving, healing, cleansing river. Then God can wash us on an emotional level. We’re cleansed and more able to express the beautiful fruit of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit more of the time.

"How do I change the way I feel?" you may wonder. Without the Lord, you probably can't! All you can do is push the pain back down...to have it pop back up later. But God within you can!

“How do I change the way I feel?” you may wonder. Without the Lord, you probably can’t! All you can do is push the pain back down into the subconscious to have it pop back up later. But GOD within you can if you’ll let him! He can remove any emotion we’re willing to give him. He can change our hearts. He can do it in seconds. He can put the opposite emotion in its place, and he will do it when we make room for him to work within our hearts and ask. What an amazing trade! Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness! What a trade! What love! Will we trust him enough to let him do it?

Ready to let God move? Great! Pray this way: “God, I trust you with my heart. Lord, change me. I let go of what happened. I set all others free and I set myself free of this memory and its pain. I give you my feeling of _____. I don’t want it anymore. Not just the idea, but from my gut I give you the actual feeling itself. The new me, the completely healed me seated in heavenly places with Christ does not have this feeling, so I don’t want it in me here on earth either. I give you permission to do emotional surgery on me and remove what does not belong. Release your holy river and wash through my innermost being.

I won’t hide my feelings from you or try to manage them on my own, I give it all to you…. (*Now wait in silence with an open heart until you feel an emotional shift. It only takes a moment. It may help to imagine God’s river washing through your belly. You’ll know when it happens. You’ll feel the shift.) I receive your peace and your joy. Thank you for taking that emotional burden away. Thank you for giving me the courage to trust you with all this. Thank you for helping me let go. Thank you for this new ___ feeling inside. I feel so much better!”

Isaiah 61:3 ESV

…to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.

Comment below was added based on private reader feedback:

*The shift that can be felt, at minimum, is, that icky feeling in the person draining away. If they feel nothing afterward, keep in mind, nothing is a big improvement. Nonetheless, when the hurt is gone, the person can receive the opposite feeling by faith and thank God. It’s done.

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Resources for further study:
Live Free (paperback) by Dennis and Jennifer Clark

Emotional Healing Made Simple by Praying Medic

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Part Two

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