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Mountain Chaplain, Dryden, WA (2026)

10/19/2024

WHICH IS IT?

Do we have all that we need in Christ, or are we still lacking?

Are we one with Christ, or do we need more of Him?

It seems like a mysterious paradox—all of God dwells in us, yet there is more of God still to be received, more than you could possibly imagine.

To unveil this mystery, we must look to the Scriptures. It appears that there are two themes in Bible that seemingly speak against one another.

On one hand, we have portions of the Bible that tell us of our completeness, our need for nothing.
“By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17

We are also taught that we are already in union with Christ.

“So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.” Colossians 2:10

And then, on the other hand, there is this invitation, a challenging call, to more.

“Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.” Colossians 1:10

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Philippians 3:12-14

So, which is it?

I believe,
- Yes, the Holy Spirit lives in me.
- So Yes, I have all that I need.

For truly, all that God desires to give to us, He has already given us,
- All power,
- All authority,
- All wisdom,
- All love,
- All truth,
All if this is already ours, for the Holy Spirit within us is all of that and more. Is He not?

As a believer, I don’t need any more of God; because I couldn’t possibly get any more of God than ALL OF HIM.

All of Him is in me—All of Him is in you.
He is one with me—He is one with you.
All by and through the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

The Bible says, “But the one who JOINS HIMSELF to the Lord is mingled into ONE SPIRIT with Him.” 1Corinthians 6:17

Greek verb for “Joins” is kallaō means “to unite,” “to knit or weld together,” or “to join together,” and “to make two into one.”

God does not give His Holy Spirit in portions. For how could the eternal possibly be divided into portions? Seriously?

When the Holy Spirit comes, He comes in fullness. There is no Junior Holy Spirit, no new convert Holy Spirit, nor a partial Holy Spirit.

The same Holy Spirit within Paul the apostle is the same Holy Spirit within the new believer.

The same Holy Spirit within the pastor with decades of ministry experience is the same Holy Spirit within the new believer who was just set free from a drug addiction.

The same Holy Spirit within Jesus is the same Holy Spirit within you.

Paul tells us Romans 8:11 “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.”

So the fullness of God’s Holy Spirit dwells in all believers—every single one. We are united with Him in our spirits. My spirit and the Holy Spirit become ONE!

So then how does the Spirit-filled believer experience more? How is that even possible?

The believer experiences more of God not through receiving more from God, but in surrendering more to God.

It’s not a matter of you getting more of the Holy Spirit; it’s a matter of the Holy Spirit getting more of you.

The fullness of God is within every believer, but not every believer lives in the fullness of God.

You receive more not in getting more of God, but in becoming less.
- When you fast, you decrease.
- When you serve, you decrease.
- When you pray, you decrease.
To get more of God, you vacate spaces in your life. You remove self which leaves voids for the Holy Spirit to fill.

These “empty spaces” can be made by surrendering parts of you yet to be surrendered to the Lord.

Because your spirit is already one with God, these un-surrendered areas can be found in your “soul” and “body.”

More on that next time!

07/24/2024

HEAVENLY GREETING FROM YOUR OWN
“GREAT CLOUD OF WITNESSES”

Don Piper was coming back from a conference when an 18-wheeler lost control on a rainy bridge and hit Don head-on, running over the top of his car.

When EMS arrived several minutes later, Don was pronounced dead. For ninety minutes his dead body lay trapped in the car while EMS waited for the Jaws of Life to cut him out of the squashed wreckage.

“Simultaneous with my last recollection of seeing the bridge and the rain, a light enveloped me, with a brilliance beyond earthly comprehension or description. Only that. In my next moment of awareness, I was standing in heaven.

Joy pulsated through me as I looked around, and at that moment I became aware of a large crowd of people. They stood in front of a brilliant, ornate gate.

I have no idea how far away they were; such things as distance didn’t matter. As the crowd rushed toward me, I didn’t see Jesus, but I did see people I had known.

As they surged toward me, I knew instantly that all of them had died during my lifetime.

Their presence seemed absolutely natural. They rushed toward me, and every person was smiling, shouting, and praising God.

Although no one said so, intuitively I knew they were my celestial welcoming committee. It was as if they had all gathered just outside heaven’s gate, waiting for me.

The first person I recognized was Joe Kulbeth, my grandfather. He looked exactly as I remembered him, with his shock of white hair and what I called a big banana nose.

He stopped momentarily and stood in front of me. A grin covered his face. I may have called his name, but I’m not sure. “Donnie!” (That’s what my grandfather always called me.)

His eyes lit up, and he held out his arms as he took the last steps toward me. He embraced me, holding me tightly. He was once again the robust, strong grandfather I had remembered as a child. . . .

The crowd surrounded me. Some hugged me and a few kissed my cheek, while others pumped my hand. Never had I felt more loved.

One person in that greeting committee was Mike Wood, my childhood friend. Mike was special because he invited me to Sunday school and was influential in my becoming a Christian.

Mike was the most devoted young Christian I knew. He was also a popular kid and had lettered four years in football, basketball, and track. . . . When he was nineteen, Mike was killed in a car wreck. It broke my heart when I heard about his death. . . .

Now I saw Mike in heaven. As he slipped his arm around my shoulder, my pain and grief vanished. Never had I seen Mike smile so brightly.

I still didn’t know why, but the joyousness of the place wiped away any questions. Everything felt blissful. Perfect.

More and more people reached for me and called me by name. I felt overwhelmed by the number of people who had come to welcome me to heaven. . .

I saw Barry Wilson, who had been my classmate in high school but later drowned in a lake. Barry hugged me, and his smile radiated a happiness I didn’t know was possible.

He and everyone that followed praised God and told me how excited they were to see me and to welcome me to heaven and to the fellowship they enjoyed.

Just then, I spotted two teachers who had loved me and often talked to me about Jesus Christ. As I walked among them,

I became aware of the wide variety of ages—old and young and every age in-between.

Many of them hadn’t known each other on earth, but each had influenced my life in some way. Even though they hadn’t met on earth, they seemed to know each other now.”

07/21/2024

God Wants To Welcome You Home!

Jesus claimed that the heart of God for all people is that of a loving Father would do anything to have His kids come home.

“Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.”1 Peter 3:18

Reflecting on her experience of Heaven, Crystal—who had been baptized but never felt loved due to her abusers—admits that it’s challenging to find the right words to describe all she experienced in Heaven, simply because human language doesn’t even come close.

Words like “beautiful,” “brilliant,” and “amazing” fall far short, she says. “What I experienced in heaven was so real and so lucid and so utterly intense, it made my experiences on Earth seem hazy and out of focus—as if heaven is the reality and life as we know it is just a dream.”

Crystal describes being immersed in a feeling of complete and utter purity, perfection, unbrokenness, and peace, a kind of assurance she’s never experienced on earth.

“It was like being bathed in love,” she remembers. “It was a brightness I didn’t just see, but felt. And it felt familiar, like something I remembered, or even recognized. The best way to put it is this: I was home.”

Jeff left the scene of a fiery car accident to find he “was in a different place. This was a place of joy. It was familiar. It was home. I felt real, but I was not injured. I was not a floating orb. I was myself.”

Samaa, who grew up in the Middle East, found herself in the presence of Love:
“He radiated an amazing love that contained deep acceptance. I felt neither condemnation nor shame. At first I hardly dared to look at Jesus, but after a time I felt my body being lifted up. Then I was standing before Him. As He smiled at me, relief poured over my soul. ‘Welcome home, Samaa,’ He said in a voice sweet and gentle, yet also powerful, like the sound of many waters. He opened His arms to me. His beautiful eyes were like blazing fires of consuming love that overwhelmed me.”

While Don Piper spent ninety minutes clinically dead, he said, “I saw colors I would never have believed existed. I’ve never, ever felt more alive than I did then. I was home; I was where I belonged. I wanted to be there more than I had ever wanted to be anywhere on earth.”

After reading through hundreds of Near Death Experiences stories, I’m awestruck by how everyone who experiences this “Being of Light” describes a love that would:
- run toward them,
- embrace them,
- value them, no matter what—
- and simply want them home.
And home is what they describe!

One day God wants to welcome you home, too!

07/18/2024

Your Great Worth to God

Knowing how God sees you sets you free to accomplish the things God created you to accomplish.

It sets you free to use the unique gifts God gave you, as well as the time, and resources to make an eternal impact—not to prove you’re worth something, but because you are worth everything to God.

“God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. . . . For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:8

Did you get that? You are His MASTERPIECE. His one-of-a-kind work of art. His very best work!

Yet we are all damaged masterpieces in need of restoration. He wants everyone to receive His gift of salvation (healed, delivered, forgiven) being “set right” and “made whole” in God.

When you know you’re right with God—not because of what you have or have not done, but because of what God has done for you and in you—then you don’t need to prove your identity.

Then God begins your mysterious transformation, your restoration of His masterpiece into the beauty of wholeness, thus empowering you and setting you free to accomplish the very things God planned for you before you were born.

Don’t be willingly ignorant (dumb on purpose), you are God’s MASTERPIECE!

People having a near death experience often get a clear message—God has a purpose for you still in this lifetime. His solution to many of the world’s problems is you my friend, He created you on purpose for a purpose, His perfect purpose. And this purpose is world changing.

It’s estimated that some 8,000,000 people in the United States alone have experienced a near death experience. We can learn so much from them about the after-life, especially when a vast majority of these experiences, mysteriously, line up perfectly with scripture.

A man wrote about his near death experience, that he didn’t want to return to his earthly life, but was told “by a man in light” that he had not yet completed what he had to do in his life. Subsequently he returned to his body “with a sudden lurch.”

A thirteen-year-old girl who died in surgery recalls, “I heard a voice that seemed soft yet authoritative tell me, ‘My child, go back, for you have much work left to do!’ I was instantly back in my body. Instantly!”

While recovering from surgery, Mark’s weakened heart stopped. As the doctors worked feverishly to bring him back, Mark took a journey down “the most beautiful road I have ever seen,” one that took him through a mountain paradise.

Mark began to hear a voice that seemed to be “from nowhere, yet everywhere. . . . ‘Mark! You must go back!’ ‘Go back? No! No! I can’t go back!’ Again the voice said, ‘You must return; I have given you a task; you have not finished.’ ‘No, no, please, God, no! Let me stay.’ . . . The voice of the Supreme Being seemed to emanate from nowhere but at the same time from everywhere.

Many who come back say that they were told they have more to accomplish here on earth.

It shouldn’t require our death for us to discover our God given heavenly purpose here on earth… yet God will use anything to wake us up to His purpose in and for our life.

When a child shines in accomplishing his eternal purpose, his father receives glory… it’s only natural… naturally supernatural!

You, my friend, are a SUPERNATURAL MASTERPIECE! Jesus bankrupted heaven, gave everything He had to give, even His own life, to redeem you, to restore you to your original value, as if sin never happened!

07/02/2024

THE FIRST TIME MEETING THE REAL YOU!

“Who defines who you are?”

This is such a critical question, but so few of us have really stopped to answer it.

- Who has the right to define who you are?
- What you’re worth?
- What your purpose is?
- Whether you succeed or fail?

How you define your identity is ultra-important. What you believe about yourself is what shapes all your decisions and actions.

Crystal struggled with God. Struggled with her identity. Struggled with shame . . . and for good reason. The sexual abuse had started at age three at a babysitter’s house. At five, it happened again, in the home of a different babysitter, but Crystal didn’t tell her mother about the molestation because she wanted to shield her from more pain and suffering.

Crystal knew her mom had endured one divorce, and now, after marrying Hank, things got even worse. Hank had anger issues, was always drunk, and became physically abusive to Crystal’s mom. One night while trying to scare her mom, Hank threatened to kill little Crystal. Pointing a shotgun at Crystal’s head while she slept, he pulled the trigger. He barely missed.

“By age six, Crystal had watched two marriages fall apart and endured horrific sexual abuse. Her mom started partying each week upstairs in the home of friends, while downstairs, Crystal and her brother were left alone. For five straight years, Crystal was sexually abused during these weekly escapades. While it didn’t happen every time, she remembers, it happened a lot, yet she didn’t tell a single person. “The shame and the dirtiness and the brokenness that I felt became my identity,” she says. That shame-based identity clung to Crystal like wet, smelly clothes. For years, she acted out of this false identity.

Until age thirty-three, when she died.

Crystal went to the hospital for pancreatitis, and due to complications, she coded.

During a nine-minute span, she left her body and went to Heaven, where she stood before God.

Crystal says the experience profoundly transformed her to the very core of her being, yet she kept the story to herself, afraid she would be seen as crazy, judged, shunned, or even fired from her job as a teacher.

Although God had clearly instructed Crystal to tell others what she remembered from her near-death experience, she still hesitated.

Crystal questioned why God had chosen her. Although she had grown up in the heart of the Bible Belt, been baptized, and attended church regularly in her youth, after all that happened to her, she turned far from God and claims she broke every one of the Ten Commandments—“all ten,” she emphasizes.

Again and again she challenged God to prove his existence, and when he did, she constructed a new obstacle or challenge for him to overcome, she explains. “I saw the hardships in my life as evidence that God had no interest in protecting me from harm.”

Crystal questioned and cursed God. She was determined to cut him out of her life.

That day in the hospital, Crystal’s lips started turning blue, her mom called the nurse, and the nurse called for Code Blue. Not everyone goes through a tunnel when they die clinically; some just wake up in a new world, and that was Crystal’s experience.

After she told her mother she loved her, closed her eyes, and drifted off, Crystal awoke to find herself in Heaven with God.

“The first thing I remember becoming aware of was that I was still me. And I was still the me who had just told my mother that I loved her and died. And I was very aware of the fact that I had just died. But I also was the me that had existed from the moment that God had created me. Unlike on earth, where I was plagued by doubts and fears, in heaven there was nothing but absolute certainty about who I was.”

Crystal felt infused with a complete and total self-understanding and self-knowledge.

All the baggage and abuses that had muddied her identity on earth instantly evaporated, revealing, for the first time, her true, essential self.

“‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,’ God says in Jeremiah 1:5. And now,” says Crystal, “I knew myself. Imagine that—the first person we meet in heaven is ourselves.”

When we base our worth or identity on what we do or what was done to us, we will struggle with fear of failure, feel the need to prove ourselves, or manipulate others who get in the way of our success.

We will become self-consumed.

That’s because God never created us to get our identity from what we do or what others did to us, but from who we are to God.

Your identity is in God, it’s time you meet the REAL YOU!

04/01/2024

What judgment looks like in the New Covenant.

“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” John 12:31

Or “the time of judging the world (system) has come.”

Know this, the judging of the world is the overthrowing of the kingdom of darkness.

The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ is passing a sentence of judgment on this fallen world and declaring treason in the kingdom of darkness.

Everything changes because of the cross—the hinge of history.

And since the Cross dealt with the issue of punishment, the judgment we experience as believing believers in the Kingdom is judgment in our favor.

Therefore “New Covenant Judgment” is accomplished as both the enemy and his works are destroyed, and our Father, the Supreme Judge, restores to us that which the enemy has stolen, killed, and destroyed in our lives.

This is what judgment looks like in the New Covenant for those who are believing believers.

Let me be clear, we are currently in the Last Days, not the Last Day.

There is a Judgment Day coming, a dispensational season change for all those who ignore the days of grace.

The Book of Revelation makes this very obvious, being filled with page after page of judgments for all those who decide to step on the precious blood of Jesus.

But all through the New Testament, references to this season of the world’s judgment are always related to a “day,” not the Last Days.

What I am trying to say is that there is a specific time in history that will change the way in which God relates to the people of the world.

But remember, as believing believers, we are not of this world! We need to change our mindset, the way we think about judgment (repent). The Cross worked!

Again, we are currently in the Last Days, not the Last Day.

03/28/2024

"Before I go on stage, I ask the Holy Spirit to walk for me, talk for me, speak for me, sing for me…”
Reba McEntire

03/23/2024

“Sometimes the devil allows people to live a life free of trouble because he doesn't want them turning to God.

Their sin is like a jail cell, except it is all nice and comfy and there doesn't seem to be any reason to leave.

The door's wide open. Till one day, time runs out, and the cell door slams shut, and suddenly it's too late.”

~ God’s Not Dead

03/21/2024

Stop telling God how big your problems are, begin telling your problems how big your God is!!!

03/18/2024

If you do not fear God you will ultimately fear man!

03/18/2024

I prophesy;

Legacy begins here and now. This is where it changes.

Our kids will not grow up tormented, demonized, gender-confused, addicted, or unsure of who they are. They will be sons and daughters of God who know their identity, and purpose, pursuers of Gods heart, and restorers of those who are broken.

Our marriages will not be attacked any longer, assassinated, broken down, and destroyed. Our marriages will be holy and set apart. Not like the worlds ways but built upon the rock - in JESUS name!

~Nate Johnston

03/16/2024

All things work in our favor when we serve God, no matter what the circumstances look like. This core value trains us to look for and focus on God’s redemptive purposes more than problems.

“We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

Mountain Chaplain

10/19/2024

07/24/2024

07/21/2024

07/18/2024

07/02/2024

04/01/2024

03/28/2024

03/23/2024

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03/18/2024

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03/16/2024

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