Sign Language

Jesus tells His disciples in John 14:11 that they should believe Him based on the miracles from His ministry. He didn't just come saying that He was the son of God and the Messiah, but He preached the Kingdom with demonstration of the King. When John the Baptist was having an internal struggle in prison he sent his own disciples to ask Jesus if He was the Messiah even though John himself had said that Jesus was the Lamb of God. The response Jesus gave in Matthew 11:5 was that "the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor."

If that was the standard that Jesus carried then why shouldn't we do the same? In John 14:12 He tells the disciples that they will do greater works than He did. Jesus made it clear to the disciples that their mission was not to preach at people and get them saved but rather it was to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and cleanse lepers (Matthew 10:7-8). Jesus never intended for us to argue with people and try to convince them with our words. We are simply to preach the gospel and do the stuff.

Jesus even said in Mark 16:17-18 that "these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." Are the signs accompanying you? Since I am not about lowering standards so that I can pass them I will use the example of Matthew 11:5. Do the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead come back to life, and those with skin conditions healed?

While in Michigan I realized that the more breakthrough I get in healing, the more I become hungry for greater breakthrough. Many deaf people were getting healed but there were others that had not gotten healed. There was a blind woman at one of the meetings but I didn't get to pray for her and I don't believe she regained her sight. The lame did walk, but not all of them. I prayed for one man who hasn't had legs in many years and he did not receive a miracle. Do we really believe that these signs will accompany us if we believe? I think sometimes we forget to uphold the standard.

(Someone has a problem with their left ear. Open in the name of Jesus!)

Sometimes we struggle to speak the language the others need in order to receive the gospel - and I don't necessarily mean that they don't understand English. They may have arguements that we don't always have answers for but when signs follow you it is a language that all understand. When they experience the power of God it speaks their language and confronts them with the truth. I am becoming much more proficient in sign language so that in all circumstances signs follow me. I rejoice in the man who took out his hearing aids yesterday morning and said that he didn't need them any more, but I know that if I can't communicate every sign then the language of the Kingdom may not be expressed.

God is so good!

I am in Petoskey, Michigan right now on a Firestorm. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is simply a ministry trip led by a pastor from Bethel where students from the school of ministry can get hands on experience. So far this has been an amazing trip! Leading up to this trip I began to contend for breakthrough that every person who comes to the meetings would get healed. With all the healings that have taken place over the past two evenings I believe we are well on our way to reaching that goal. I want to share with you just a few of the testimonies of what God has been doing.

A man with diabetes was prayed for on the first night. He walked up to the front carrying his cane to testify that God had healed him. He was there again last night without his cane sharing again how God had healed him. Towards the end of the meeting he brought me to another man saying that he really needed prayer. God showed me there was something wrong with his feet and he said they were numb. After praying once his feet were tingling and then after praying again all of the numbness was gone and all of the feeling had returned. The man then started to laugh and then cry - something that several people told me they had never seen him do (laugh or cry!). I then asked him if anything else was going on and he told me that his stomach can't digest food. I prayed once and he said that he was feeling less nauseous than before. As I prayed again I felt as though I was squeezing his body in the spirit. He started shaking a lot and after I said, "be healed in Jesus' name," I released the peace of Heaven over him and he immediately stopped shaking. I asked him how he felt now and he said that it was completely gone! God is so good!

On the first night I called out scoliosis as being something that God was going to heal. Last night a woman grabbed me and said that she got healed. She told me and then testified to the whole church of how she went to her chiropractor that morning and told him that she didn't need an adjustment because she got healed. The chiropractor then was amazed that he couldn't find the curve in her spine. He asked her, "what really happened to you?" to which she answered, "I went to church last night and God healed me!"

Last night Kevin shared a testimony from last Saturday in Turlock, CA when he called out a word of knowledge for Rhonda with Lupus. It turned out to be the wife of somebody in the church. Kevin talked to her on the cell phone during the service and God healed her! She then came to both services the next day to testify that all of her pain and fatigue was gone! Well, last night Kevin asked if there was a Rhonda who has Lupus and a woman raised her hand saying that it was her daughter. So as 200+ people watch on, Rhonda, who was in another state, got healed of Lupus over the cell phone! Over the next 10 minutes, two more people with Lupus were healed over the cell phone. Talk about the power of the testimony!

I gave a word of knowledge last night that not only was God going to heal deafness, but that somebody's ears were going to open right now. I was surprised when only two people stood up for that word. The first one didn't even have deafness, but ringing in his ears. Within a few minutes of giving the word I went to find the other person who stood up. She wasn't standing anymore because God had already healed her without anyone praying for her!

After hearing of her healing I started to pray for an 86 year old woman. As I had her test out her hip she said that while she was able to walk better, she was still in pain. I then asked her what was wrong with her feet and she said they were fine. I told her that I was feeling burning on the bottom and she said, "Oh, my feet do feel like they are burning on the bottom!" I told her that this was just a sign from God that He is going to heal her whole body (she told me she was skeptical that God would heal her) and sure enough within a minute the burning in her feet had stopped - Praise God!

Later I went to pray for an 89 year old woman who had a stroke and was constantly dizzy for four years. I prayed for her a few times and nothing happened. An hour or two later I came back to release the joy of the Lord over the woman and her son. I was pleased to see that she started to laugh. She is 76 years older than me! I have never made someone that old laugh! After a few minutes of laughing I asked her if she was still dizzy and she said that it completely went away. She was so happy because she has been constantly dizzy for four years until someone laughed on her! God is so good!

There were so many more healings both last night and the night before. One of the great things is that each night about half of the crowd has been from other churches in the city. I am praying that when we get to the last meeting we will fully exhaust the supply of sick people in the church! Yesterday we got to speak at a Christian school. We prophesied over students and teachers, gave words of knowledge, and healed the sick. That hour could have just changed the lives of those students. God is so good!

For God so loved the world

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." - John 3:16-18

As I was praying and worshipping this morning I was struck by the lyrics to a song that was playing. It was "How He Loves" off of the "We Cry Out" CD. I started to think about how much God loves us.

Ephesians 3:17-19 says, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." His love surpasses knowledge. Paul is praying that the believes will be able to grasp just how much God loves us.

Then in my spirit I felt that if people knew how much God loves them, they would be instantly healed. John 3:16 came to mind and I realized that Jesus wasn't just talking about salvation. So often people think that God gives them sickness as a punishment for things they have done wrong or to teach them a lesson. That is not what my bible says. It says that whoever believes in Him is NOT condemened. Did you get that?

Well, wouldn't you get to Heaven and be with Jesus sooner if you died an early death due to sickness? I think that is just an excuse to to cover up the fact that you didn't want to be in relationship enough with Him while here on earth to ever seek His face until you had encounters with Him daily. Am I stepping on your toes yet? Back to John 3:16, Jesus says that those who believe will not perish, but have eternal life. Let me tell you that eternal life doesn't start when your body is six feet under the ground in a casket, it starts the moment you believe. If you believe in Jesus, and what He said, you will not perish. I am becoming more convinced every day that the mountains are not removed from the lives of Christians because they lack faith. Let me rephrase that. Breakthroughs don't come because people don't understand that God is good and that He loves them unconditionally.

When God reveals to you more of His love you will know it. You won't be the same until He does it again. It isn't about just words. You can memorize the entire Bible and miss the heart behind everything that is said. That is why people can have enough faith to go to Heaven but not enough faith to bring Heaven to Earth. They believe that Jesus died for their sins but miss the rest. On the other hand you can dive into the Word until you grasp it and know it in your entire being. That is when you become a Heavenly atmosphere ready to change the world at any moment in any location.

I pray that today you will have an encounter with this love that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Pressing in for breakthrough

I just got back from a six mile run with three guys from church. With the exception of being forced to run about a mile one day in May, I haven't run at all since June of last year. I am happy to say that I ran the first 2.5 miles without walking. However, after that point I walked most of the way back around the loop. However, when I could see the end I went for it again, running faster than I had run at any other point. I could see my goal and wanted to finish strong. I could have just kept walking, I mean it was 105 degrees outside, but there is something in me that won't just throw in the towel and give up. It is possible that I won't go running again anytime soon since it is a very low priority for me, but if I do, I know that I will need to challenge myself to run more and walk less. Don't worry, there is a point to this.

Two times in the past week I have had friends come over for a "Glory night." The goal of these nights is to seek the face of God by giving Him the glory through praise and worship. The idea is that we must go beyond what is convenient and comfortable and actually give a sacrifice of praise to God. My friend Zach said it well, "the higher our praise goes, the deeper our worship will be." I found that to be true during the second night when I had trouble breaking through with my praise and then found that my worship was much shallower than it had been the first time around. Zach read us a quote by Ruth Heflin who said, "When you discover things that seem to contribute to the glory, do those things more; and when you find things that seem to diminish the glory, stop doing them. It's as simple as that." Run more and walk less.

I have found that even with all the hunger for God there is still the element of time and convenience. I set aside an hour to pray in tongues. I soak for an hour. I might read my bible for an hour. Occassionally I might block of more time for one of these, but typically it is set in stone. I thought of that this morning as I prayed. I abruptly stopped at one hour just because it was an hour, even though I was gaining momentum.

It would have been pointless for me to stop running after one mile because I was still feeling great. When you can meet your goal and still have energy you shouldn't stop, but rather go for greater Glory! If you are wanting to go to another level, you can't continue to do the same things that you are already doing, you must press in for breakthrough! I will not be able to run 6 miles if I always stop once I reach the 2.5 mile marker. We won't see the Glory of God in our meetings if we stop short of His Glory. We have to praise higher and worship deeper.

Last night was an experiment. We had no instruments and we didn't put on any CDs. We didn't have a worship leader. After we went for maybe two hours we stopped and began talking. I knew that we should press in again, but my flesh didn't want to. We shared some great things and had very meaningful conversation for another few hours, however I knew that next time we meet together there would be no excuse for not pressing in again. After walking at least a mile and a half I knew that I had no excuse to not press in and run the last mile or so. You don't get breakthrough when you give up, you get it when you press in, running more and walking less - doing the things that contribute to the glory more and doing things that detract from the glory less.

Hunger-Producing Victory

A week ago Bill Johnson had a “family talk” at the Sunday evening service. I would say that the main theme of his talk was pressing in for more. There have been so many people who have gotten healed over the years, yet there are still many who have gone on to be with Jesus or are still stuck with their disease or disability. The challenge is to not get satisfied with some victory and become complacent so that future battles are lost. Like him or not, when Lance Armstrong won the first of his seven consecutive Tour de France races he picked up his training regiment to further distance himself from the competition. How much more should we prepare ourselves for something that has eternal significance?

I have been reading sermons by John G. Lake extensively over the past week and have been amazed by his faith. It truly seems as though every person who came to him was healed because he wasn’t afraid of any condition. That is how I want to be. I want cancer to be afraid of me, not the other way around. After reading several stories about how when he placed his hand on cancers and tumors they were literally burned by the power of God I became convinced that this should be how we always approach disease. When you know you have the answer, you will use it.

Last night I was praying for a man who was given no hope by the doctors. There is nothing that can treat the form of cancer that he has and his insurance has refused to pay drug companies to just do experimental research on him in hopes of finding a cure. After listening to him talk for quite some time I felt like my faith was about ready to explode all over the man and his wife. Romans 4:18-21 says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

I don’t know about this man, but I know that I was not about to waver in unbelief regarding the promises of God. I am fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he has promised. I told the man that it was time for his miracle and I began to pray. I felt God lead me to he area where the cancer is so we laid hands on it and I imagined that thing shrinking under my hand, being burned away by the fire of Almighty God. After a minute or two I asked him what was happening and he responded that the pain was leaving and that he felt it was shrinking. So we continued to pray and that continued to happen.

I haven’t seen hundreds of cancer cases healed like John G. Lake, but bless God it is starting to happen. I have been pressing in for more and God has been answering. I have been praying that every person would be healed and a much greater percentage of people are being healed. Those who are truly hungry only get hungrier when they taste victory.

God doesn't lie!

In Mark 8:17-18 Jesus askes His disciples, "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember?" He was asking this because He had fed the 5,000 and He had just fed the 4,000 and yet the disciples were still worried about whether they would have enough to eat. We have their example of what not to do, however often when God miraculously provides we do the exact same thing.

When I was first seeing miracles in Brazil last summer I faced doubt only a few days later. I was preaching in a church and on the third and final night I began to worry about whether people would get healed when I prayed for them. Just a week earlier, the first service that I was at to pray for people I prayed for seven or eight people without a translator and each one of them was healed! Even though I had seen many healings take place through my own prayers and even greater miracles through the prayers of the rest of the team, I began to wonder if God would do it again. That last night was tough as my doubt overcame my faith for most of the people I prayed for.

God wants us to look at what He has done and what He is doing to have faith for circumstances that we face. In the past ten days I have witnessed upwards of 50 things healed ranging from hearing loss to carpel tunnel to arthritis to dizziness and all sorts of pain. In March I was very hesitant to pray for people with hearing loss even though I did see some people get healed and was the only person to pray for one woman whose hearing was restored. In Boise, Idaho last month God showed me that He was wanting to heal a man's ears and he did just that. Since then my fear of praying for the deaf has gone away and I have seen probably 10-12 people regain their hearing. In fact, I believe that someone reading this is going to have their ears healed. Particularly the left ear. Be healed in the name of Jesus! The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

My faith is increasing that when God releases a word of knowledge to me that the person will in fact be healed. I believe that they will be healed as much as I believe that the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning. I used to think of a word of knowledge as though it was a check from a friend that is without a job and may not have the money in the bank when in reality a word of knowledge is as good cash - it has no chance of bouncing. My faith has increased so that Numbers 23:19 has become a reality. When God speaks, it happens, because He doesn't lie. While in Oregon last week I asked God for a word of knowledge for the gas station attendant who was limping. I felt a sensation on the right side of my head. It turns out the man had cerebral palsy. It wasn't that his leg was injured, it was that there was a brain injury at birth that affected his leg. God doesn't lie!

But wait, there's more!

Today Alex Rodriguez became the youngest player to reach 500 home runs in baseball history. However, the once spectacular feat is now overshadowed by the question of whether he will be able to match Hank Aaron's 755 home runs and the amount that Barry Bonds ends up with (he is currently at 754). Even for Bonds, the quest to pass Aaron's record and get to 756 will then be how many more can he hit.

The past three days was the Jesus Culture conference here in Redding. On Wednesday night Lou Engle talked about how The Call is like John the Baptist who prepared the way with prayer and fasting. Then he went on to say that filling stadiums with people to pray and fast isn't enough, we must move on to the ministry of Jesus, with mass healing and deliverance. It was great to have 70,000 people gather in Nashville for The Call on 07/07/07, but can we fill stadiums with people who will be saved, healed and delivered? We are to the point where we must move past praying for revival and go out and have revival!

On Thursday I was leading one of many outreach sites in our city to equip the conference goers in signs and wonders. The first person that I talked to during the 30 minutes we had got healed. For many of the people in my group they had never even ministered on the streets before, let alone see someone get healed. The man was walking with a cane and was wearing knee braces. He was in a lot of pain because of his sciatic nerve. A few minutes after we had prayed for him we saw him again and he told us that when he walked away he realized that his back felt better. I realized that "better" isn't good enough and asked God for more while he was still 40 feet away. Then as he continued to walk he realized that all of the pain was gone and that he no longer needed his cane to walk. Carrying his cane in his right hand, he continued to walk down the street thanking us for our prayers and praising God for healing him.

Last night Chris Hill spoke about how it isn't enough to simply have a profound experience at a conference but then leave thinking that you will have to wait until next year to experience God in the same way. For David it wasn't enough to be King, he had to have God's presence in his city. We can't be satisfied with having access to the presence of God once a year or just at certain locations or events. There is so much more of God that we can tap into!

This morning at the healing rooms I saw God open the ears of three different people. With each one I could feel when the healing was done and then would tell them to check the improvement. I recently heard Todd Bentley say that when a word of knowledge is given it isn't his anointing that heals people, but it is God because Todd is just calling out what the Father is doing. I expereinced that in a measure this morning as every correct word of knowledge I gave (between 7 and 10; I did give a few that were not correct or undetected) got healed. I asked one man if he had problems with his left ear and he said no, only to have his wife say that he has ringing in his ears. As I prayed I felt like my ears were draining out and declared that his ears were opened and asked him how it feels. Well, his ears popped, and then he couldn't stop smiling, laughing, and praising God as the ringing stopped and his hearing increased!

The more people I prayed for, the more words of knowledge I got, and the more my faith increased that God was going to heal every last infirmity a person had. For some of the first people I didn't get as many words of knowledge. Some of them experienced healing while a few didn't notice a difference. I prayed before we started that God would heal every person that came in. Out of the people I prayed for, only one didn't notice any change, others felt God do something and left encouraged that they were healed but had no way to test it, and the rest got mostly or completely healed. There is more though. As great as it was to have those 3 people have their hearing restored before I ate anything today, not every person who came in was healed. As much as God did I won't be satisfied until every person gets healed. Once that level is reached I will have to think of something else because there is always more!