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.
Showing posts with label raise the dead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label raise the dead. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Thoughts to ponder: Raising the dead
So I have been thinking about raising the dead more than normal and came across a question on an assignment for school where the topic came up. Here is my response:
"Jesus didn't command us to prophesy, yet we all can, but we are not all prophets. Jesus commanded us to heal the sick, but some will have a gift of healing, perhaps like John G. Lake, who saw hundreds of thousands of people get healed. I'm not sure how that works when you consider that we were also commanded to raise the dead. Would the person with the gift of healing just raise the dead more often?"
Just a thought.
David Hogan's ministry in Mexico has raised 300 people (approx.) from the dead. However, they have tried to raise approxiamately 2,300 people from the dead. That is a 13% success rate. For each person they raise from the dead it takes on average between 6-8 hours of prayer. So assuming that they don't spend any more time praying for the peope that don't get raised from the dead than the people that do (which I am sure they probably keep praying for the people), they spend 40-54 hours praying for people that don't get raised from the dead between times when they are successful in raising the dead. Don't like the 13% success rate? In baseball you wouldn't even make a minor league team if you batted .130 unless you are a pitcher. However when you think that they have raised 300 people from the dead and I have never done it, their 13% success rate looks pretty good.
We were commanded to raise the dead.
When you are raising someone from the dead do they have the choice of whether to come back or not?
Just to clarify, Jesus said to raise the dead, not to pray for the dead.
I am now 0 for 1 in raising the dead.
I realized that if I did raise the dead I would think that I have somehow arrived in that I have reached some cool spiritual level with God that He allowed me to raise the dead. WRONG!
We would probably see more people raised from the dead if people like myself stopped thinking that we are at a high level of spiritual maturity because it happened through us. This is probably also true when applied to creative miracles and other "great" miracles that many people would not have faith for.
"Jesus didn't command us to prophesy, yet we all can, but we are not all prophets. Jesus commanded us to heal the sick, but some will have a gift of healing, perhaps like John G. Lake, who saw hundreds of thousands of people get healed. I'm not sure how that works when you consider that we were also commanded to raise the dead. Would the person with the gift of healing just raise the dead more often?"
Just a thought.
David Hogan's ministry in Mexico has raised 300 people (approx.) from the dead. However, they have tried to raise approxiamately 2,300 people from the dead. That is a 13% success rate. For each person they raise from the dead it takes on average between 6-8 hours of prayer. So assuming that they don't spend any more time praying for the peope that don't get raised from the dead than the people that do (which I am sure they probably keep praying for the people), they spend 40-54 hours praying for people that don't get raised from the dead between times when they are successful in raising the dead. Don't like the 13% success rate? In baseball you wouldn't even make a minor league team if you batted .130 unless you are a pitcher. However when you think that they have raised 300 people from the dead and I have never done it, their 13% success rate looks pretty good.
We were commanded to raise the dead.
When you are raising someone from the dead do they have the choice of whether to come back or not?
Just to clarify, Jesus said to raise the dead, not to pray for the dead.
I am now 0 for 1 in raising the dead.
I realized that if I did raise the dead I would think that I have somehow arrived in that I have reached some cool spiritual level with God that He allowed me to raise the dead. WRONG!
We would probably see more people raised from the dead if people like myself stopped thinking that we are at a high level of spiritual maturity because it happened through us. This is probably also true when applied to creative miracles and other "great" miracles that many people would not have faith for.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Can't say I didn't try
Well, today at school we signed up to pray for one of our fellow students who is dying of cancer. He is around my age, so obviously this cancer isn't right. Well, I felt like I should sign up for the 11 pm shift that would last until 2 am. I then had a feeling in my spirit that he would die while I was there so that we would have to raise him from the dead.
Initially, I also signed up for an 8 am shift that I thought would be a back up in case he hadn't been raised from the dead yet. I ended up giving that shift to someone else who really wanted it.
Well, we get to the house 5 minutes before 11 pm and the previous team tells us what is going on and then packs up to leave. The father also came downstairs to tell us just to pray down there and that he would call us if he needed us. Just a few minutes later we hear the mother yelling for us to come pray, Matt died.
We were trying to give the family space so we just stayed in the area praying in the spirit. After a while of that we left them and went back downstairs to pray. Not too long after that Chris O. showed up and went upstairs with the family. At 1 am Zachary and I went back upstairs to pray for Matt.
I kneeled beside his bed and grabbed his hand like I was giving him a "brother" hand shake and began to pray. I spoke life into his body, prophesied over him, declared promises of God, and commanded him to wake up in Jesus name. An hour and 15 minutes later I got up to let the next team begin to pray for him.
You can't raise the dead if you never pray for any dead people. Well, now I can't say that I haven't tried. God is so good. Not to sound insensitive or rude, but I would have never expected to be smiling and laughing when praying for someone to be raised from the dead. God has given me such a firm reality of his goodness that not even death can stop me from knowing He is good!
Teams will still be praying until the family tells them to stop. So please be praying for Matt to come back to life. I will give updates when I hear the good news.
Initially, I also signed up for an 8 am shift that I thought would be a back up in case he hadn't been raised from the dead yet. I ended up giving that shift to someone else who really wanted it.
Well, we get to the house 5 minutes before 11 pm and the previous team tells us what is going on and then packs up to leave. The father also came downstairs to tell us just to pray down there and that he would call us if he needed us. Just a few minutes later we hear the mother yelling for us to come pray, Matt died.
We were trying to give the family space so we just stayed in the area praying in the spirit. After a while of that we left them and went back downstairs to pray. Not too long after that Chris O. showed up and went upstairs with the family. At 1 am Zachary and I went back upstairs to pray for Matt.
I kneeled beside his bed and grabbed his hand like I was giving him a "brother" hand shake and began to pray. I spoke life into his body, prophesied over him, declared promises of God, and commanded him to wake up in Jesus name. An hour and 15 minutes later I got up to let the next team begin to pray for him.
You can't raise the dead if you never pray for any dead people. Well, now I can't say that I haven't tried. God is so good. Not to sound insensitive or rude, but I would have never expected to be smiling and laughing when praying for someone to be raised from the dead. God has given me such a firm reality of his goodness that not even death can stop me from knowing He is good!
Teams will still be praying until the family tells them to stop. So please be praying for Matt to come back to life. I will give updates when I hear the good news.
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