Archive for Healing

Preparation for Acceleration

{ July 9, 2007 @ 9:21 pm } · { Healing }
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This past weekend I was afforded the privaledge of attending The Call in Nashville, TN. I came to The Call expecting to go to a new level in many ways. I feel as though because I prepared my heart and was expecting God to move, He did.

On my flight to Nashville I recognized that as we boarded the plane, the person in front of me in line was going to be sittting next to me. Although it was a short flight, I prepared myself to talk with her before we ever got on the plane because I know that there will be times when revival will break out while I am on an airplane. I was able to share with her the journey of moving to Redding and seeing God move in the supernatural. She had an encounter with God because I was able to convey how I went from not believing in miracles to being apart of them on a regular basis.

During The Call I was informed that I would be going with a small group of people from Bethel up on stage to pray for healing revivalists to be released throughout the country. I was also told to get words of knowledge to release for healing to the people who were gathered (and I suppose also who were watching on TV). As we waited backstage I remembered that I have received several prophetic words about preaching at stadiums full of people. I thought, “Lord, I never knew it would be this soon!” In the end, they ran out of time to do that segment, so we didn’t end up on stage at all to pray or give words of knowledge. However, I did find a woman who had an injury very close to the word of knowledge that I was going to give (I was going to say broken right foot that didn’t heal correctly and she had a broken right ankle that didn’t heal correctly).

I have asked God numerous times in my life for an acceleration to take place. I don’t want God to move mightily when I am 85 years, I want Him to move mightily now and for it to continue to increase for the rest of my life. What would happen though if I am suddenly thrusted into doing what would only seem possible 10 or 20 years from now? Would I step up as though I was made for that moment or would I shrink back in fear giving the excuse that I am not ready?

Many Christians claim to not be ready when faced with things that are beyond comfort for them. If something causes them fear they claim that God has not prepared them for it yet. Could it be that God is wanting to bring an acceleration to His people who are willing to take Him by the hand and walk into uncharted territory? Having opportunities that are stretching for us now, but are things we desire to do in the future are gifts from God. He is giving us the ability to bring tomorrow into today.

If God has told you that you will preach to thousands, get ready to be handed the microphone. If God has told you that every crippled person you lay hands on will walk, start laying hands on them now. If God has told you that you will start orphanages all over the world, start taking care of kids now. Don’t wait for a plate of food to show up in front of you, go prepare it. Too often we wait until God gives us the thing we long for when the reality is that He already gave it to us and we don’t even realize it. We wait to be clothed in power before we will pray for the sick but the truth is that they won’t be healed until you pray for them.

As my friend aptly stated on a firestorm a few weeks ago, if you don’t do anything then nothing is going to happen. If you want to continue experiencing the results you are now, keep not doing what you aren’t doing. Did you get that? But if you are wanting an increase in results, take a risk. John Wimber says faith is spelled R-I-S-K. Do something you wouldn’t normally do, pray for something that scares you to pray for, and pray for every person that you want to see healed (which should be everyone!). How can God use you to see limbs grow back if you never pray for anyone who has a missing limb? Take a risk and prepare to be accelerated.

A Greater Reality

{ June 29, 2007 @ 3:50 pm } · { Healing }
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When faced with adversities, it is often difficult to see how we can fulfill our dreams. The reality of what we can see in the natural attempts to block out the reality of what God has called us to. Much like an eclipse, we may only see a glimpse of what we know to be there whereas the lesser reality is what we see most.

My friend Daniel reminded me how we cannot let the lies of the enemy and our current circumstances dictate our future hope. If you dream of being an author, you cannot focus on the reality that you are a poor student, you must focus on becoming an accomplished writer!

The enemy would like nothing better than to keep you from fulfilling your destiny and having a big impact in the Kingdom of God. If he can convince you that you are incapable of accomplishing your dreams then he has gained a small victory. God gives us larger than life dreams so that if we believe His word the devil won’t stand a chance at getting in our way.

I dream of being a revivalist. I dream about seeing people saved and healed every day not because I do outreach daily but because I make myself available. I dream about the biggest cities in the world being transformed by the gospel. I dream about massive healing and evangelistic crusades in the US and internationally. However, my current situation does not point to that destination. When I minister on the streets people aren’t getting saved or healed at nearly the rate they should be. A few of my friends see people get healed and saved on a daily basis. Literally. One friend told me how she was shocked when she realized one day recently that nobody had gotten healed that day.

When God has called you to the impossible, it is imperative to keep your eyes on Him and not what you see in front of you. We must allow what is invisible to become more real than what is visible or else our circumstances will dictate our future. Our world would be significantly different if inventors gave up when they didn’t immediately experience success and became satisfied with the status quo.

How many times have Christians given up on a dream because they thought it was impossible or too difficult? If I remember the story correctly, Reinhard Bonnke was not God’s first choice to win millions of souls on the African continent, but he was the first to say yes to the call. How many others are called to change nations but have let a false reality get in their way?

One of the first prophetic words I ever received was so big that I didn’t know what to do with it. I often would listen to it thinking, “how could I ever do that?” I didn’t have a firm grasp on the reality that God can use anyone to do anything and that He might just want to use me for greater things than I could ever imagine. If we turn our focus to our present circumstances instead of to God we will never see the greater reality that He has called us to and walk in the fullness of our calling.

Defeat is not an option

{ June 26, 2007 @ 3:33 am } · { Healing }
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Randy Clark has a sermon titled, “The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.” I tend to dislike this message because I am not content with living a lifestyle where defeat is normal. I understand why he preaches it though; many would become so disheartened by defeat that they would give up before ever tasting victory. Randy, like so many others, had prayed for the sick for years without seeing anyone get healed. They had to persevere through so much just to taste victory and experience the thrill of God healing someone through their prayers. Because of the groundwork that men and women like Randy, Bill Johnson, Heidi Baker and others have laid, we now get to experience breakthrough much more quickly.

One year after seeing my first healing, I have seen more people healed than I can count. At the beginning I wrote down each healing testimony, and although I still try to write them down it is difficult to keep track of everything God has done. However, I have seen more people walk away without healing than I have seen walk away praising God for healing them. Many of these defeats break my heart. I remember praying for a man with cerebral palsy back in February. I prayed so fervently and felt the Holy Spirit stronger than any other time I have prayed for someone yet nothing manifested that I could see.

Then of course there are friends of mine who are afflicted with disabilities. These are illegal! I have contended for their breakthrough but to no avail, both still are confined to their wheelchairs. I can’t leave out that I prayed for one of them that the doctors would not have to put rods in her back because she was healed and while the doctors changed their minds and didn’t put any rods in her back, she still isn’t healed. But praise God, no new rods!

This past weekend I met a guy two years younger than me with a disabillity. Most people with his condition die at a very young age. Counting the whole weekend, I spent around 10 hours praying for him before he left town. He is an amazing young man whose freedom is being robbed by the enemy. Seeing him leave in the same condition as the first time I saw him crushed me. That evening I spent at least another hour praying for another man whose freedom and health is also being robbed by the enemy after I had already spent over an hour praying for him the day before. Still nothing.

Today I was called up to go to the hospital to pray for a man who was dying with two people from church who knew him. I felt the Holy Spirit flowing into him as I prayed. Heat was all over his chest as my hands were on him. Several times I felt the power of God rush through my hands and into his body. A few minutes after I stepped away from him he went to be with Jesus. After giving the family a few minutes to mourn I knelt down to quietly pray for him to be raised from the dead. After a few minutes, one of the people I was with tapped me on the shoulder to motion for us to leave. I am now 0 for 2 in seeing both the dying healed and the dead raised.

Tomorrow I should be meeting with a man who is paralyzed that I prayed for last week at the hospital for about an hour. Nothing happened last time but he is going to walk. I am not giving up and I am not giving in. God is good all the time. By His stripes we are healed. I will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. It is impossible to pray and have nothing happen. Jesus commanded us to heal the sick and to raise the dead. Nothing is impossible with God. Defeat is not an option.

When we ask, God answers

{ June 14, 2007 @ 6:40 am } · { Healing, word of knowledge }
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This morning as I was spending some time praying I was asking God to increase the number of healings that are manifesting while I am around. I have felt that recently there hasn’t been much breakthrough in healing, or if there has been, then the people have just not told me.

Tonight I went to a Living in the Supernatural class taught by Bethel’s outreach pastor Chris Overstreet with my friend Erica. I have been wanting to go to Chris’ classes for the longest time but I have never been able to. Well, tonight was a good night to go. Within a few minutes of being there, God used me to bring healing to two people! As I was greeting two men I felt a muffling over my right ear so I asked them what was going on and found out that one was 50% deaf in the right ear and the other had blown out his ear drum.

The first man could not notice a difference in his hearing because there was so much noise in the room, but as I prayed for the second man God completely healed his ear drum! He said that he used to be able to get air through it and that he would experience a lot of pain when he would get water in it in the shower.

Then the first man asked me to pray for his right shoulder because he could not lift his arm above the shoulder. God completely healed him as he started lifting his arm and explaining, “I couldn’t do this before! I couldn’t do this before!”

Meanwhile, Erica was praying for the second man again who then got healed of headaches through a word of knowledge, arthritis, and then even a problem with the lymph nodes which he could feel drain! All this happened before the meeting started!

When the meeting was about to dismiss Erica felt pain in her left knee and hesitated to give the word as oftentimes people just kind of roll their eyes when a random person gives a word of knowledge. However, I wasn’t gonna let her pass it up, so I looked around, thought that I saw the woman who had the pain, and then asked if anyone had pain, and she responded. Erica prayed for her knee and God completely healed it!

Meanwhile I went to pray for a guy who fell off a ladder and has almost no movement in his arm due to swelling. He was able to relax his arm more and regained some of the movement.

Erica and another student named Anne began to pray for another woman. After praying for a while and seeing many things in the spirit for the woman, they were able to usher in God’s complete healing of the woman’s back. She was so excited because she has been in such tremendous pain. Through words of knowledge about scoliosis, problems with the shoulders, TMJ, and others, the woman was completely set free from the pain and healed of fibromyalgia.

It was incredible how God was giving us the tools to minister to people. God, you are so good! Afterwards we discussed why God uses us since we haven’t done anything to deserve it. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I feel like He moves through us because we ask to be used and we make ourselves available. If I hadn’t acted on the word of knowledge that Erica had, none of that would have happened. When we ask, God answers!

The Normal Christian Life…

{ June 10, 2007 @ 8:45 am } · { Healing, Holy Spirit }
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Today was another good day in the Kingdom. People got saved, people got healed, and people received prophetic words that will catapult them into their destiny.

In the morning I did prophetic art during worship. I have never done it before and haven’t painted since elementary school. I’ll admit, other than not knowing the basics about painting like drying off the brush, it was a lot of fun and not hard at all. During the rest of the meeting our row was just getting whacked some more. Man, has it been fun. I can’t wait to go on more Firestorms in the future.

We gave words of knowledge and a bunch of people were getting healed. God is so good! After changing a flat tire and then taking it to get fixed we arrived for our afternoon outreach to hear an amazing testimony from the pastor’s wife. One girl who just graduated from BSSM called up the pastor’s wife’s father to pray for him for healing of his detached retina that left him completely blind in that eye. She prayed over the voicemail as they weren’t home. Meanwhile, at lunch, the man takes of his sunglass type things, covers his good eye, and tells his wife that he can see her and the outlines of some other things as well! God is so good!

There were some awesome testimonies from our outreach time. In addition to the seven people who got saved, many others got prophetic words. One boy, who I made a balloon sword for, told me that he has been to many nations already (like 10!) after I prophesied that he would go to many nations. Other children were taught to prophecy and learned to hear God’s voice with training from our team. Yea God!

The evening meeting was amazing. We prophesied over every person there. It was great. I think our whole team was drunk. The people were experiencing new things and had things spoken over them that created a grace for them to walk into. I even received an amazing word from one of the mothers on our team. I feel funny saying mother since it was perfectly delivered like Cindy Jacobs! It was so powerful! Definitely the most impacting word I have gotten.

People got healed of stuff. One girl on our team asked a lady if she had problems with her right knee which led to finding out she had all sorts of problems. The report when we left was that all the pain was gone! Woohoo!

Enjoying some new wine!

{ June 9, 2007 @ 6:58 am } · { Healing, Holy Spirit }
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(Ok, so if I say today/tonight in this blog I am referring to Friday, June 8 since that was when I thought about it. And if you don’t want to read the whole thing, then I think you should read the very end where I talk about eating pizza, it will rock your paradigm if you aren’t familiar with it)

So today, well yesterday now that I am writing it, I finished work early up in the mountains to leave Redding for a ministry trip to Lake Tahoe. I have mentioned that pretty much since school ended I have had an increased awareness of the Holy Spirit and angels. Today (er, yesterday) was no exception. From the time we met to pray before we left until the time I lay down in bed to go to sleep I was getting royaly whacked. Can I just say that I was drunk for about 13 hours? (Is everyone ok with the term, “drunk?” I come from a background that is less free than Bethel and so I don’t want to offend people just because of word choice. No, I didn’t backslide and get drunk on alcohol. Yes, I did get plastered in the Holy Spirit and was being immersed in His love!).

So the whole car ride there I was pretty much drunk. On the way there we drove towards Mt. Lassen, the 10,000 foot volcano that I hiked up back in September and then headed towards Reno. Then we drove towards Lake Tahoe and drove up over 8,000 feet in the mountains before headed back down towards the Lake (for my Florida friends, a football field is 300 feet long not including the endzones, so that means we drove up about 27 football fields high!). The mountains and the Lake are beautiful. God is so good. I work on top of a mountain with incredible views, then I drive through the mountains and end up at a service which overlooks a huge lake with beautiful mountians around it!

Tonight, the speaker at the meeting was the man who imparted the Father’s Heart to both the late Jack Frost and John Wimber (of the Vineyard movement). I tried to pay attention as much as I could but I was getting blasted the whole time. Since school has been out I have been manifesting a lot more than I had earlier in the school year. It feels as the my discernment is definitely increasing as I am starting to take notice of things. Praise God!

After the meeting, he had everyone under 30 come up for impartation of the Father’s heart and sure enough when Kevin Dedmon (our fearless leader) came by and prayed for me I got wasted. A little bit later I went to go join others from our group in praying for people. I only prayed for two people but I didn’t hear any reports of God not healing someone! Come on Jesus!

I went and prophesied over a couple with another guy, we were later joined by probably 5 others, and at one point Theresa Dedmon and I got slammed at exactly the same time (Woah! It is starting again! HAHAHAHA!) I am talking about getting blitzed and I am getting myself hammered in the process! Talk about power in the testimony!

Through an exchange with one of the people on our team, I am learning that even when we look like we are manifesting similarly, we can still feel things completely different. For instance they felt like liquid pouring down their head onto their body whereas I didn’t feel it at all when they put their hand on my head, but instead I felt heat on my hands. When the prayed a second time the heat came back and then increased.

Finally, we left for our host home. Talk about awesome. I have a queen bed (fit for a king though…haha) that has nicer bedding than any other bed I have ever slept on. Hands down the greatest pillow ever. The towels are definitely 6 feet long and the shower head was glorious (maybe it is just that I have been using bad shower heads since I moved to Redding, but boy was it nice!). OK, this next part is great!

As we ate some late night pizza one of our guys was talking about his joy angel being next to him. Since I have been able to feel angels recently I figured I would go over to where he was standing (the angel that is) and immediately when I got to where he was I could feel him and had to back up. It gets better. After a few times of me asking Shandy what he saw the angel doing when he felt him, I had gotten up to get another slice of pizza. When I got back to my seat I felt something on my neck that made me manifest pretty good and I try to quickly put down my plate to keep from dropping it. When I asked him about it, Shandy said that he took a feather off the angel and put it on my neck when I walked by! No joke, that feather, that I didn’t know about, and I didn’t even know that he put anything on me, even in the spiritual realm, rocked me!

God is so good! More fire Lord!

Don’t miss the prayer meeting!

{ June 5, 2007 @ 2:02 am } · { Healing, Holy Spirit }
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Ah, God is good.

It has been a long day of hard work, but there is a satisfaction of being able to relax after working hard. My back is a little stiff after 9 hours of working, but the first thing I did as I got in my car to drive home was to thank God for giving me that job. Being able to admire God’s creation while I work and on the drive to and from work doesn’t hurt either.

Well, I’ll back up to last night. I went to soak before pre-service prayer and God’s presence was thick! When I went over to the church I was one of the first ones there and started to get whacked a little bit before anyone else was really there. Did I mention that God is good and that I am having so much fun? Pretty soon more people arrived and God kept coming as well. At one point I was about to fall backwards when a guy that I normally walk around with came out of nowhere (which is funny because he walks really slowly like I do while there) and caught me. The rest of prayer kept getting better as our group of 3-5 people with arms around eachother’s shoulders started, stopped, spun around completely (I’m still not sure how we pulled that one off!), almost fell over a few times, laughed a lot, and fell over a few times. Then we had a bonfire at the end and sure enough me and my “dancing partner” (lol, that guy I just mentioned) fell over and almost took a few people with us.

Worship was so much fun! There has not been a worship set during a meeting in the past 3 weeks that I haven’t loved. That is good! It isn’t because the music was always the greatest, although it usually was, but rather because I have decided to worship whether I felt like it or not.

Eric Johnson spoke, which doesn’t happen often on a Sunday. This is the first time I have heard him other than at school or one time at a Friday night service. He was great. He talked a lot about what I have been thinking about recently, just in a slightly different context. He talked about our spiritual inheritance and not trying to pay for what we have been given for free. I found myself realizing that I am still trying to pave my own way instead of building upon those who have gone before me. If they already have breakthrough in it and it is my inheritance then why am I still trying to get it on my own? After having a good ole time in the fire tunnel I went to the grocery store to pick up some lunch making supplies for work. While there I prayed for a few people. It was quite refreshing after many awkward attempts while down in Sacramento of Saturday. Nothing happened that the people noticed which I happily say to show that I am not just trying to share healings. It is a growing process for me right now as earlier yesterday I went to Costco and didn’t pray for the people whose paths I crossed who could use a healing or two.

Finally, on a very random note, I wanted to share about something that just happened. I bought a pair of shoes less than two weeks ago since the pair I had been wearing were really falling apart. Really! So as soon as I bought them I started to wear them sinc my old shoes were now in such bad condition. Since the only way to return shoes is if you don’t wear them outside your house I didn’t see any value in keeping my receipt. Especially since I got them right before I moved I was trying to get rid of things I didn’t need. I think the thought went through my mind about something happening to my shoes so I decided to keep the receipt and I put it in my checkbook. Today when I got home from work I was taking off my shoes right before going into the apartment when the loop that holds the shoelace in place broke. So I called up the store where I bought them and explained what happened and they are going to let me replace them because I have the receipt and the box (I can’t remember the last shoe box I got rid of unless it was really old). It could just be an unusual coincidence, but I think it was the Holy Spirit telling me to keep the receipt!

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