THE MARK OF GOD ~~ By Jonathan Dougherty

Praise the Lord everyone.
God is so good. My first post to the blog I wanted to share a story with you that was monumental in my experiencing the difference between knowing about God, and knowing God! I believe God wants to reveal himself to men and women everywhere and show them Jer. 33:3.  If we seek, we shall find, and if we knock, he will open to us spiritual treasures that are priceless and are beyond human understanding and reasoning. 
I have always loved the Lord and served him since my youth. I have had the Holy Ghost since I was six years old, but about five years ago I began to search after God, and call upon him in a way that I had never done before. Since that day, the Lord started me on a journey and I have never been the same. 
I had already made arrangements to be in a trade show that week. In the time between signing the contract for the show and the actual event, the church had scheduled a revival. Well, you cannot just back out of these tradeshows if you ever want to get back in again. So I had a dilemma. I wanted to be at revival, but I had already signed a contract and paid my money to be in this show. It did not look like I would be able to be at the revival. Revival started at six o’clock, and the show was not over until five o’clock. In addition, I would have to load up all of my things at the same time everyone else was, that is usually quite time consuming. It usually takes three to four hours. So I told the Lord, “Lord I know that it’s Your will for me to go to this revival, so if it’s Your will, you are going to have to make a way for me to get there”. So I started asking the show manager about noon if there would be any way I could leave early that day. He told me “absolutely not”  because they had to have the expo building empty that night and I would not be able to remove my things if I left early. I asked the manager several more times throughout the day if it would be possible for me to leave early.  Each time, he told me the same thing, “no”. So I just started singing the song, under my breath, all day long “I’M DEPENDING ON YOU LORD”. About three o’clock, the show manager came over to my booth and said he did not understand it, but they had decided to let me leave early and leave all of my things in the expo building until the next morning. He said they had never let anyone do that. So, I made it to revival that night. It was at that revival that the Lord started talking to me very clearly.  My whole life had been focused on myself and gaining things of this world and financial success, because of that, I failed to realize what God really wanted for my life.  So as I knelt that night I prayed, “Dear God, I want Your divine will to be manifest in my life. Lord, more than anything else, I want Your mark to be upon my life!  I want people to know that I am sold out for You and I will never be swayed by things of this world again, and I meant it!”  When all of a sudden in an audible voice, that came from no where yet seemed to come from everywhere, as though I were inside the voice, I heard the Lord say (and He called me by my name) “Jonathan, I have had my mark upon you since you were born! “  I wept uncontrollably.  
That night I had two dreams.  The first dream, I saw a little tiny bubbling spring of water coming out of dry and parched ground.  As I watched the bubble of water, it got a little bigger.  As I kept watching, it was soon about two to three feet tall, then six to seven feet, then eight to ten feet.  I kept watching until it was an enormous geyser of water over a hundred feet tall.  It was then that  the Lord gave me the scripture in St. John 7:38 “He that believeth on me as the scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”  Well I could not sleep after that, but finally after about an hour I was able to drift off.  I had just gotten to sleep when the second dream began.  I heard a deep base drum, like a drum used for battle, way off in the distance.  It came closer and closer and closer until it finally woke me up.  I jumped up out of bed to see if there was someone out there making all that noise.  The Lord immediately told me (again by my name) “Jonathan put on your armor, because I am moving you from the rear of the battle to the front lines.”  Since that day, I have not been the same!  And I never will be again!                  TO BE CONTINUED...