Annoying prayers

Disclaimer: If you have done what I am about to say I am not mad at you, as I have done it too. Let’s mature as a body to the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13)!

Recently I have noticed that I have become frustrated with certain prayers or prophetic words. Typically the prophetic word says something that like “You are going to do this,” and this thing they mentioned is something that all believers are supposed to do. Or the prayer could be something that completely contradicts what we have through Jesus. Does this annoy anyone else?

While I understand the need to encourage people who do not yet understand that they can and are supposed to do certain things why do we need to prophesy it? We shouldn’t need prophetic words to tell us that we are going to do what we have already been given the ability and command to do. Likewise, why do we pray for God to do something that Jesus already did? We do not need to convince God to do something that He already did. We need to go do what He already told us to do. I’ll admit, I have been there. My faith for seeing people healed used to be so small that I was really encouraged to hear someone prophesy that I would heal the sick.

On the other hand, this morning someone gave me a prophetic word about doing something that God’s word does not tell me to do (that I know of), but was something that has been on my heart a little bit to do. Honestly, I don’t know if I would have followed through with doing it on my own, but with that prophetic word I will. Why did this word help? Because it was specific about doing something that Jesus didn’t tell me to do but that will benefit the body.

When somebody is immature, they need simple directions, others to tell them who they are, and constant encouragement. When somebody is mature, they don’t need to have their hand held every second or to be told to do something they already are supposed to do.  The mature get things done. While most would agree that age can bring maturity, age does not equal maturity. The bottom line is that we all need to mature.

“It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” – Ephesians 4:11-13

Successful Failure

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“The difference between people who do things and people who don’t do things is that people who do things, do things.” – Banning Liebscher

Last night when I stopped at our awesome local restaurant Dixie Dream I saw a guy limping up to the counter to make his order. When he went back to his truck, I was finishing up my food and going to throw away my trash.  I approached him and asked if anything was wrong. He said that he was fine, but was just tired from a long work day. After he asked if I was a chiropractor I told him that when I pray for people they get healed. He again said that he was ok, but thanks for asking and I walked off.

While it would be easy to look at that as a failure because he didn’t let me pray for him I look at it as a success. Why? Because I didn’t let fear keep me from approaching him. Too often we are afraid of failure so we don’t take risk, but the reality is that you will never succeed unless you risk failure. A baseball player risks swinging and missing if he wants to hit a homerun (or just get a hit!). A basketball player must risk missing the winning shot if he wants to make the winning shot. A Christian must risk being turned down if she wants to heal the sick in public.

About a month ago I was in Rhode Island and was leading a few people on a treasure hunt. When we were walking away from a guy that we had approached and prayed for I felt a tingling on my arm, which I normally take as a word of knowledge that God wants to heal a person. Without thinking about it I immediately turned around and asked the guy if he had a problem there. He said that he didn’t. Bummer! You might think that I was disappointed or embarrassed, but I was actually quite happy that I asked him without hesitation.

Or take words of knowledge in general. I have given words of knowledge to people literally thousands of times where the person said that they didn’t have that problem. Basically it seemed like failure. However, there have also been literally thousands of times where I gave a word of knowledge, it was right, and the person got healed of something that they weren’t going to tell me about. So if I hadn’t risked failure all of those times, I would have missed out on all of those times that people got healed! One pastor from Mexico got healed of six things even though he only told me about one thing that he needed to be healed of! Two older women I have prayed for have both been healed of over 10 things because God pointed out things to me that they hadn’t thought were that big of a deal.

Remember, the more you risk failure, the more opportunities you have to succeed!

Troubled Water

Ever since I purchased a nice BPA-free Camelbak water bottle I have been drinking much more water than I used to. Although the initial smell of sulfur from the tap indicated that something was wrong, over time I no longer noticed the smell resulting in my guard being let down. So instead of drinking water from a water cooler, I began using the water fountain. However I began to have stomach problems pretty much all the time until last week when my wonderful fiancee pointed out that too much sulfur in the water could be the cause of the problem. So, I started filling up my bottle at home and immediately I noticed the difference!

On two occasions I had kids in the youth group pray for me. The first time I was better for a few weeks. The second time, which was just last week, I felt better initially but then had problems again the next day when I drank the water. Basically, five or more days a week I was filling my body with something that was making me sick!

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“Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.” – 1 Timothy 5:23

This verse gets used a lot by people who say that it isn’t always God’s will to heal. They are assuming that Timothy is just sick and he needs wine to be his medicine. Well, if it wasn’t God’s will to heal him, what business did he have trying to go against God’s will to get better? If bacteria in the water was making him sick, wouldn’t it make sense to put something else into the water to kill the bacteria? Yes! Or as in my situation, if dirty water makes you sick and you have access to clean water, just drink the clean water!

Why didn’t I just get healed from it all? My thought is that the first time the youth prayed I believed and I got healed. A few weeks later I even told them that I hadn’t had a problem with my stomach since they had prayed. However, soon after that I saw a bunch of commercials for a prescription drug I took as a teenager that was pulled off the shelves for causing serious stomach problems. That caused me to wonder if I had developed any of those conditions and what do you know, that was around the time when my stomach problems came back. Why? Fear is an open door for the devil to give us sickness.

Now I don’t know exactly what happened in Timothy’s case, but who can say for sure that he hadn’t gotten prayer and been healed previously? Maybe he had seen others get sick with the same condition since sanitary water wasn’t as prevalent then as it is now and then became worried that he would get it again. Perhaps he would get healed but then be afraid that it would come back?

There are a few good lessons to be learned from all of this:
1. Don’t take something every day that makes you sick because it will probably make you sick.
2. We stay healthy by not worrying (or having fear) about getting sick because if we think we are sick (or that we will get sick) we get sick.

Thinking Outside the Bowl

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The other day I realized the need to clean a toilet as there were plenty of water stains on it. Knowing that I previously could only find a very runny, liquid cleaner I was not too thrilled with the idea as the parts that needed to be cleaned were above the water line. I so wished that I had the toilet bowl cleaner that clings to the side of the bowl so that it can actually get clean!

After cleaning the toilet three times with the other cleaner with almost no change I went to put it away when I noticed way in the back the cleaner that clings! I was so happy! I used the anointed toilet bowl cleaner and it worked so much better! The sad thing to me is that it was there all along and I didn’t use it until now! At least now I know that I have access to it whenever I need it, but I sure do wish I had known I had it earlier as I would have put it to good use!

Aren’t most Christians like this? We go around thinking we don’t have what it takes to really make a difference. We think all we can do is just try to sanitize the world around us instead of really doing a deep cleaning that brings transformation in people’s lives. Yet, we actually do have the good stuff! We have what it takes! We just haven’t looked hard enough to find that it is already inside of us! As long as we think that the best we can do is just pray or do a little good deed that we are supposed to do we will be missing out completely on the full potential of what we have inside of us. Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)! The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive in you (Romans 8:11)! We gotta think outside the bowl, no longer thinking that we don’t have the right stuff, and use what God has given us, which is a whole lot better than we could imagine!

The Renewal

I am beginning to realize just how much our minds can be renewed. I am interested in seeing how far I can go in only believing the truth about Jesus and who God made me to be. The natural world can be a huge enemy to our minds being renewed. Every time we see something that conflicts with what we think is truth a battle takes place in our minds. Do we stand or do we crumble? Take this quote from Jason’s blog.

“If you’ve seen the Matrix, you remember the scene near the end where Neo realizes who he is. He becomes aware that he has the power to choose to follow the system of rules in the matrix or supersede them. In fact, he just relaxes, hardly makes an effort and puts one arm behind his back while deflecting EVERY strike his enemy can make! Then he realizes he can supersede it further! He jumps inside of his enemy and blasts him apart…something they NEVER saw coming! Then they RUN!”

That my friends is a renewing of the mind! When we realize that what we have been given through Jesus supersedes the rules of this world, then His Kingdom will come and earth will be like Heaven. When believers know that Mark 16:15-18, Mark 11:23-24, and John 14:12-14 are for them AND they live it out, things will be different. The enemy will run because he will realize he can’t win, not if any of those who really believe are around.

Here are a few more good quotes from The Matrix (not in any particular order):

Morpheus: “You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.”
Morpheus: “Don’t think you are, know you are.”
Morpheus: “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”
Morpheus: “The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
Morpheus: “There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
Trinity: “The Matrix cannot tell you who you are.”
Morpheus: “He’s beginning to believe.”

Tire, Lube Express

For a while now I have not wanted to shared testimonies out of the fear of people thinking I am out to get their praise. I am not out to do that and I know I am not. I do desire to encourage people and to be honest nobody will be encouraged by the testimony that they don’t hear. I didn’t want to share testimonies on sites like Healing Herald because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Well, I have decided that I will start posting testimonies as often as I get them and will be honest in what happens and what doesn’t happen. Here is what happened this morning…

I went back to Wal-Mart today to get my oil changed and tires rotated after yesterday the worker told me that I would have to wait an hour for them to unload a tire truck before they got to my car. I didn’t want to wait that long, so I drove around to the front of the store to get my groceries and leave. By the way, I was annoyed that they wouldn’t work on my car and hoped I would run into the manager to tell him. Upon entering from the front I saw a cashier with a brace on her elbow who was helping someone. I got my groceries and then checked out at another cash register even though nobody was in her line. I came up with a “great” excuse in my mind that I realized was stupid as soon as I left.

So today, no tire truck, but there was one car that was in front of me in line. The older couple walked in ahead of me, the woman walking very slowly. We got inside and after letting the worker know what needed to be done, we all sat down. Soon after they got up and went into the store. A little later the woman came back and sat down, so I placed my bookmark in The 166 Lifestyle and went over to talk to her. Turns out she had a pinched nerve so I prayed for her. Thirty seconds later she noticed no change. We kept talking about it when I felt she had a problem with her tailbone. She had injured it in April and it aggravated the pinched nerve. I asked to pray again and this time she felt better afterward. I encouraged her a bit that God wanted her completely healed. I went back over to my bench and they walked away again. Coming back to pay for their car she had a big smile thanking me saying that she felt so much better. That made it totally worth having to spend almost two hours making the second trip to Wal-Mart.

Then the manager walked right by me and I was able to calmly tell him what had happened yesterday to which he apologized and said that it shouldn’t have happened. So all is right. My relationship with Wal-Mart’s Tire, Lube Express is restored.

Faith in God

Last night I was reading The 166 Lifestyle by Marc Lawson when something just clicked for me. For as long as I have pursued seeing people get healed I have either thought that I have faith for a condition to be healed or I don’t. My focus has been on the mountain/sickness/problem. The only problem is that if you haven’t seen a condition healed then you typically don’t have faith for it. One “giant” for me has been developmental disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy, etc… Although I strongly desire to see people with them healed, I have said that I don’t have faith for it, so I don’t pursue after people with those conditions in public, but will pray for them if they come to me. That should be a red flag right there because if we are afraid to do something we dream of doing, we are believing a lie.

What I realized is that while I have been focused on having faith for this to be healed or that to be healed, I need to just have faith in God (Mark 11:23)! I have experienced bits of this in the past, but kind of like a training wheels version of it. One example is for a few weeks around when I started my 2nd year of BSSM every time I got a word of knowledge for a person they got healed. Why, I believed so strongly that God wanted to heal them. Another example is that during a few different seasons whenever God would give me a word of knowledge for the ear I knew the person would get healed. The funny thing with this was I only had faith to pray for the person when God showed it to me, but NOT when someone just brought a deaf person up to me. You may notice the pattern here. I had faith in God when He pointed it out to me. In those occasions I had faith in His desire, character, and power to do it. However, when God didn’t point it out to me, I didn’t have nearly as much faith that my prayers would work. It sounds stupid now, but that’s how it was for a few years.

Having faith in God for one thing doesn’t work for another. Having faith in God means you know that “by his wounds you have been healed,” (1 Peter 2:24). It means you know that believers “will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover,” (Mark 16:15-18). You know that Jesus healed every person who came to Him even people who weren’t the lost sheep of Israel (see yesterday’s post). It means you know God’s character, His goodness, and His love. It means you know that because healing is in the atonement it is already done and you don’t need to convince God to heal someone. It means you have faith in God’s word because He doesn’t contradict His word. When you read Mark 16:15-18 and Matthew 10:7-8 do you believe it and act accordingly? The issue isn’t a matter of having faith for healing, it is really a matter of whether we believe God or not.

(This morning I became aware that Brandon has also been writing on this subject. Although I read his post “Simple Faith” before writing this, I did not write this in response or reaction to his post. If you read this post and “Simple Faith” you will notice we use different language which seem to contradict, but I think the overall point is the same. After writing this I also found his post, “How to have great faith”. I recommend reading both to hear further perspective about the subject. I have added Brandon’s site “I am a Spirit” to my links on the left side of your screen.)