On Eagles Wings - Ron Hutchcraft Ministries

A Personal Independence Day

Update From Ron Hutchcraft

At Warrior Leadership Summit, we had the very best kind of fireworks you could possibly have on the 4th of July—spiritual fireworks. At the end of day one was a chance to present to the young people here from so many nations, exactly what Jesus Christ did because He loves us so much. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

When the public invitation was given, one young lady responded, who is from what has been described as the most violent reservation in America. I knew when I met her that there was a lot going on, because of her desperate tears and almost uncontrollable agonizing over some things. We learned later, as two of our young ladies from On Eagles’ Wings talked with her personally, how drug-damaged she is from extensive meth use and crack cocaine. We learned of sexual addictions and even evident demonic battles going on in her life. Last night, after much time together, there were some tremendous spiritual breakthroughs because of the power of Jesus Christ and I can tell you that chains came off last night for that young woman. She is breaking free!

The message that night was very simply talking about how we can explain the fact that there is so much pain, so much hurt, so many people hurting each other, and so many funerals on the reservation. Why is it that it just seems like our world is a mess, our community is a mess, our family is a mess, and we are a mess? We went all the way back to the very first humans in a perfect world with Adam and Eve. We began to look at these amazing discoveries: we’re wired for God, we’re created by Him and for Him, God created us to live like we were made in His image, God created us for a great plan He has for us, and we were created to live forever.

Unfortunately, we’re running from God just like Adam and Eve did. We’ve turned our back on Him and we’re running our own lives. Just like Adam and Eve, we face a death penalty for rebellion against God, because no one who’s taken their life out of God’s hands and hijacked it can live in God’s heaven. The good news is that God comes looking for us as He did for Adam and Eve.

So, God came to this conference center, to a gathering of many nations, and He came looking for many. What a privilege it was to give these young people an opportunity to come to an old wooden cross at the front, to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ. I bowed my head to pray and when I looked up, I saw so many young people and so many empty chairs. The work of the Holy Spirit was evident because most of it was over in a minute. They came instantaneously knowing what they needed.

This is not something that normally we would expect from people from a Native culture, because they’re a private people. It was such a strong public demonstration of a desire to know Christ. Many left behind chains on the platform next to the cross.

This was the beginning of the Summer of Hope, because you know who the counselors were of course. They were the On Eagles’ Wings team members who know how to rescue, and they are so excited, because the first rescues of this Summer of Hope have taken place right here at Warrior Leadership Summit. There was a significant amount of young people here who made a commitment to Christ just at the end of our first full day here.

One Sioux young man said, “I’ve been running from Him and now I want to be set free.” One young lady said to me from the southwest, “I have been considering and attempting suicide since I was seven years old.” Imagine the pain of a life that is seven years old and wants to die. She said, “I came because there’s so much sin that I need forgiving. All these years I felt like I was not worth anything and there was no reason to be on this earth.” Well that changed in an encounter with Jesus Christ.

 I talked to nine guys from a remote Native community in Canada who were very unchurched and very rugged. It was incredible to see their hunger to know Christ. One of them simply wrote afterwards, “I want to learn all about God and praying.” Someone else said, “It felt like God put me here to be His follower. Thanks for allowing me the choice to have Jesus Christ.” Hallelujah!

Now that many of these young people have nailed down a relationship with Christ, we’re going to begin to move into preparing these young people to live for Him in some of the most toxic spiritual environments in North America, and to truly be warriors for their people. While here, I’ll be talking about soul trash and the bondages and choices that we have made to have our needs met. We take a real need for something that’s missing in our life, whatever it is, and we try to meet that need in a wrong way. There will be a call for believers to once and for all abandon the junk that is dragging them down. If that happens, there will be slaves who go free and liberated young people can go back and be liberators of their people.

Independence Day was such an appropriate day for scores and scores of Native young people to break free. For them, they’ll celebrate on the 4th of July their personal independence day for the rest of their life. The people with great spiritual radar are saying this has to be the Holy Spirit. They say they are assessing the work of the Spirit of God here at a level that they have never felt at Warrior Leadership Summit. That tells me you must be praying. Thank you so much for your part in making spiritual history among these people who have waited so long - and have waited too long to have their chance at Jesus.