I was in a church service recently and the person at the pulpit relayed a “prophesy” he had heard. There was a local boy who had gone into anaphylactic shock after eating chicken nuggets the day before. The manufacturer had since recalled the nugget because it contained gluten, which this child was allergic to. The boy had oxygen deprivation for a while and had some brain damage. A minister went to visit the boy and opened his bible and landed on a healing verse int he psalms. He felt this was a sign and declared boldly that God would raise the boy. Praise God.

The prophesy was declared from the pulpit the next morning by another minister. God was credited as having said that the boy would live and that it would be a testimony. By the end of that service the boy was dead.

Dan Edean recently wrote a post in his blog (the name of which I cannot spell) about bad christian advise. In talking to my wife about it, we found a common theme. The majority of bad counsel we have received was less bad advise and more correctly presumptuous expectations.

Let me explain.

When I got married we immediately had kids. Our finances were not in order, I had a pretty bad job and my wife made more than me. Our brand of church pretty much required that the wife stay home and take care of the kids. We were told not to worry because God would double my income in response to our faith. I am still waiting for that to happen seven years later.

I was strongly advised to get the first job could after graduation college and that God would raise me up. So, with my military experience, IT background, corporate communications degree under my belt and past leadership roles listed on my resume, I got my first post-college job washing cars. For disclosure sake, I did move up to a sales manager role in that company but quit because the job was awful and compromising.

Could God have doubled my income? Of course! Could he have raised me up to lead that company and turn its ethics around? Of course! But He never told me He would do that. I presumed He would on the advise of others. That is not faith.

The valuable thing that I learned through lots of bad advise is this, faith is not the absence of logic. It is, perhaps, the presence of an assurance in the face of logic. Aside from that assurance you only have presumption. And presumption don€™t pay the bills!

Hebrews 11:1 Listen

11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

That evidence is what was once called assurance and it is missing in too much of what the church is doing today.

Surely that minister at the side of that child’s bed wanted to believe that God would raise that boy. But guess what, God never said He would. If He did, then the boy would not have been buried yesterday.

We do the church harm when we cannot discern faith from presumption. This is the reason many mock the pentecostal movement. Real faith is sometimes saying, “I don’t know.”

So I was working the altar last night for a while. Near the end of the evening a girl I had seen a couple times came up to me and asked for prayer because her back has been hurting for several months.

I prayed for her and asked how her back felt. . . no change. Now, we are just talking about some back pain here. Not blind eyes, not missing limbs, not lupus. A backache. I prayed the prayer of faith and the anointing was so think that my ministry assistant and I both felt like we might fall down. I asked again how she felt.

No change.

Now this was getting annoying. I quoted James 5 and did all I knew how to do. I asked again and she said she felt a little better. I don’t settle for courtesy healings so I asked her how much better. Turns out she was about 50% better. I said that we are going in the right direction and was about to pray again when I decided to ask a question.

I know many of you might be saying that there could be unforgiveness, or bitterness. Maybe there was a specific sin or a generational curse. Maybe we had to tackle a territorial spirit or have her renounce past affiliations.

I am not that spiritual.

I asked her, “Are you right with God?” She shook her head no. I asked if she had ever known God. She shook her head no. Hmmm. We might be on to something here.

I preached the Gospel from front to back and gave her an opportunity to repent for specific sins that God was showing her. I really prefer this method. I will lay my hands on a person and tell them that God is going to reveal specific sins that they need to repent of. He always does. They then have the opportunity to either submit to God or resist His Spirit.

This girl was broken. As tears rolled down her cheeks she mouthed words of repentance for sins that only she and God knew of. After that I lead her in a prayer declaring Jesus as Lord and requesting to be saved and filled with the Holy Ghost so she can have power to not do those things again.

Afterward she looked up at me with the glow you can only see on the face of a new believer. I asked, “how do you feel now.” She said, “I feel really, really good.” I said “That is what forgiveness feels like. How’s your back?”

“The pain is gone.”

I said, “Of course it is. Welcome to the Kingdom.”

Have you ever seen a real life healing miracle?  I mean the kind that you can see with your eyes.  The kind that takes no faith to believe.

There was a season that I had some sort of flat feet anointing.  It is really wild to see an arch develop in a flat foot.  I saw a 3-year-old child get arches one time and her parents lost their minds.

Lately I have gotten the “It does not hurt anymore” type of healings.  I am happy for those but I really want to see more.

I was at an assisted living facility this past weekend and came across a man who lost his sight a few years ago.  I told him that I was going to pray for him and he was going to be healed.

I anointed him with oil and prayed the prayer of faith.  When I was done I asked, “Can you see now?”  He couldn’t.  I repeated the exercise three more times but he still could not see.

I considered telling him that God did not heal him because he lacked faith or because God did not want to heal him (just kidding, I don’t believe either one of these things) but instead just prayed a prayer of blessing.  I really hate that moment after you pray for someone who was not healed.  I would like to never experience it again.

But I am not going to avoid that feeling by departing from the commands of scripture to pray for the sick.  I am going to seek the face of God and continue to believe that He wants to do unusual miracles today.

Is there another way of getting a word about headaches other than to get a headache?

This is getting a little old.

Here is a really neat story about a 40-something year old Jewish autistic man’s life changing encounter with a Pentecostal church as told by his sister in Newsweek Magazine.

When the pastor asked everyone to grab hands and try to feel the Holy Spirit together, I held my brother’s hand for the first time ever.

Its more than dancing and tongues in a true Pentecostal church. That is just our reaction to the welcomed presence of the Holy Spirit. He ministers the grace of God. It’s to bad more people don’t realize they need it.

I think the evangelists around here might appreciate this.

I attend a mainline Pentecostal church. It€™s a good church but not ultra charismatic.

I have managed to teach a Friday night class to any young people that will attend called €œDunamis.€ I get from a handful to 20+ people age 14-23 who are interested in moving in the supernatural. This last week I taught on the 5 step healing prayer model. Last week I taught how to conduct altar ministry.

Normally in the class I will teach for half the time then the second half we will pray until something happens. Normally after teaching about healing ministry the teacher calls up the sick to be prayed for healing. But I felt otherwise. I had everyone pray until I felt breakthrough. Then I declared that God was going to release visions in the next three minutes. After the three minutes I stopped the prayer and had three of the youth to share their visions.

The first girl said that she saw all of her friends in school that were going to hell.

The second girl said that she saw a window close. Immediately after she saw a hole open in the ground and a downward spiral that lead to a firey pit.

The third saw two groups of people. One under a black cloud and another in a sunny open field and he had the impression that he needed to move those under the cloud into the open field.

We prayed for a few minutes and several more had similar visions, one even describing the throne room as reported by John complete with the four creatures. Most of these kids are unchurched so he did not know what he was describing.

Anyway, What I thought was interesting (other than this all) was the fact that in the class I taught about how Jesus did not demand worship before healing but that people were healed and then saved.

After being taught about praying for the sick, these young people heard straight from the Spirit of God about the Father€™s heart for the lost! He definitely was connecting signs with salvation!

Last Sunday my wife and I decided to drive a couple hours up the coast to see Gary Oates at Our Fathers House Satellite Beach. My grandmother lives near there so it was a “twofer.”

It has been a while since I was in a service where both the attendees were over 18 and were worshiping freely. If you are not into charasmatic worship then I would suggest you avoid this place at all costs! There were people both young and (mostly) old dancing, crying, rejoicing and singing to the Lord. There were flags, streamers and bells. There were dancers (but not the skin tight body suit with breast implant type that I have seen and tried not to look at at other “river” churches. If you have not encountered this, thank the Lord and don’t look for it.).

If you have ever been in this type of church and then come back after a long time it is funny how foreign it looks to you. I was watching all the liberty in the worship and remembering when that was me running and dancing as if at any moment the Lord Himself would reach down from heaven and touch me. I have gotten quite off track here but I had to laugh when I was startled by the sudden burst of a handful of shofars. It really has been a while.

Anyway. . .

This was the last day of a healing conference. I went because I am contending for a healing anointing and we like a change of pace every now and then. I pray for people and they get healed here and there. Most feel God’s presence. Some feel better. Some get healed. I want all healed.

After the service I prayed for a young lady who was having mental issues. She had significant breakthrough but other than that I do not remember experiencing much.

After spending some time with my Grandmother we began the drive home.

Half way back we got a call from one of my best friend’s wife. My friend had been admitted to the hospital and was possibly facing surgery. I told the wife that I would drop off my family and head straight to the hospital.

Now hear this: I was on my way from a healing conference when I got a call that one of my best friends was sick.

About two hours later I arrived at the hospital with a ministry friend ready to see some action. We prayed and declared healing in the name of the Lord. It felt like heaven had descended in that hospital room. The anointing was so thick I could barely stand. My friend immediately was free from pain. As we were finishing, the doctor showed up and we left the room.

There was a guy the hall who was in serious pain. I prayed for him. The next morning (Monday) my friend told me that not only was he was able to sleep through the night for the first time in days, the man in the hall was relieved of his pain. My friend is always looking to gather souls for Jesus so he spent their time together witnessing to him.

That morning the doctor came in and said that the tests showed that he had gallstones and an inflamed gallbladder. His wife was expecting that later in the day, further tests would show that he was healed and that surgery would not be needed.

The next day (Tuesday) my friend’s wife was here at the house dropping off the children before heading to the hospital when he called. The doctor came in and said that he was going into surgery to have his gallbladder removed that afternoon.

AGGHHH!!!

Sure enough, at 3 p.m. my friend had surgery for an extremely inflamed gallbladder that had 4 gallstones.

This is the part of healing ministry you don’t hear reported as often. Some don’t get healed. I do not know why. I may never know this side of Glory but I will continue to hold onto

Matthew 10:8 Listen

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.

Just trying to be honest.  I think it was Wimber who originally said that faith is spelled R I S K.  One day, things won’t be like this.

Hosanna!

I have a bunch of stuff that I want to post but have been busy with a few other things (like praying the heavens down to discover where to minister).

I have asked several times in the past that you would agree with me for a healing gift.  Soon thereafter I began to notice a signifigant increase in word of knowledge.  Though this did not include words about sickness, I knew I was on the right path.

Well, in the past couple weeks I have seen some signifigant healing activity and I am pretty excited about it.

Thanks for your prayers.

This is not going to be a theological post. I am not going to debate anyone. If you disagree, that’s fine. Move on.

I have received an array of correspondence from people who happen to stumble upon this blog who come to say the same thing,

I want to see the power of God in my ministry.

I have good news for you, God wants the same. But where do you start? The truth is, there are two ways to catch a log on fire.

1. You can use friction till it smolders and then feed the smoldering embers with oxygen till it spreads to the whole log.
2. Throw the log on an existing fire.

So the easiest way to see the gifts in operation in your life is to get around people who have Holy Ghost activity in their lives. Pray with them, minister with them, study the Word with them. There is a giga-church in my area that is lead by a man who is a strong Bible teacher and evangelist. Guess what every leader in the church is? This is a spiritual law. Trust me, it works.

If there is nobody in your circle of influence that functions in these areas I have great news! You are the beginning of a revival! Here is what you do. Get two or three people who are as hungry as you and you begin an ongoing prayer meeting. When I was hungry for the gifts, this is what I did. I had a couple people and I would say, “We are going to pray until something happens!” And we did.

Sometimes someone would get a vision, or someone would get a song they would sing or someone would get a verse from the Bible that was for us but we would pray until something happened. You should do the same. Whether you are called to take care of the little ones, teach the Word, or heal the sick, you will do it better with the power of the Holy Spirit working through your ministry.
There is no excuse for a powerless Christian.

Who has any info on this? Appearantly Rev Ralph Sexton has had extended meetings that have seen quite the move of God. There was supposed to be a two week tent meeting and it turned into six. Before you dismiss it as jus another camp meeting watch this.

That’s fruit baby! Here are photos of the same.

I have an idea why this has happened. In an article in the Ashville Citizen-Times they reported,

Sexton began this revival in a cornfield six weeks ago with nearly 30 area pastors and churches who came together for a single cause: healing, soothing, saving and bringing God into troubled personal lives and into a world in a state of unrest and war.

I heard David Copeland exhort a crowd along the same lines. If we can stop looking at what revival can do for our church and start looking at what revival can do for God’s people and God’s purpose on the earth then we all might see the move we have been crying out for. Remember that the very creation is crying out for the revealing of the sons of God.

Sexton is quoted as saying,

€œIn our communities, there seems to be a hunger to return to basic moral and faith values,€ he said. €œWe have an unsettled world. Every continent has a madman and every country is asking for peace and safety and we€™re finding none.”

What do you know? The Gospel still works. We don’t need to reinvent it or repackage it.

Maranatha!

More report in the Wilmington Star

UPDATE:Hal Donaldson wrote in thte PE about disunity in the church being its greatest problem.