"You Didn’t Tell Me it was THIS Good!"
The seminar on the Suffering Church ended at 5:00 p.m. on a Thursday. Two hours later I was in a different location with different people for a different conference. It was hard to switch gears from the seminar to the conference, from one topic to another, from a small intimate group to a large crowd and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay. In fact, because of tremendous tiredness, I missed the second night’s session.
The speaker told the story of a man who, as a ten-year-old, was made a sex slave and drug runner by a biker gang. When the boy was 16, he finally told someone—his uncle—but when that uncle turns up dead shortly thereafter, the boy knew he had to run. He got married and lived life, somehow completely forgetting/blocking those six years of his youth until one day he heard a voice from those years and it all came back to him. He wound up in the psychiatric ward and several days after his release, he called the speaker to pray for him.
The speaker didn’t want to pray for him. He didn’t know how to pray for him and yet the man was persistent and so the speaker went. Amazingly, the man fell to his knees and then flat out on his face. His body began to bounce up and down and the speaker looked at this, wondering what in the world was going on and how in the world a body could even manage to bounce like that. The bouncing didn’t stop and so finally the speaker left.
The next day he got a call from the man. “You didn’t tell me it was THIS good,” he said.
How did Jesus demonstrate the Good News? By going to people and delivering them from spiritual bondage. Have you ever thought of this? Every person healed means a family restored. It is God’s invitation, expectation and plan that the Good News will go through His followers each day, every day for the rest of their lives. Anyone can receive this Good News and anyone can give it away.
But how? How do we do this? We start now—just the way we are. In John 5:17, Jesus said, “My Father never stops working, so why should I?” (NLT) The kingdom of God is always expanding—with or without us. Jesus said, “I do what He’s doing.” Basically, Jesus wandered around the day, looking for what His Dad was doing and then joined in.
The speaker told the story of how he witnessed and then participated in his first healing. It was scary stuff. He and his friends were praying for a woman’s leg to grow two inches. What if it didn’t work? But it did! All he had to do was be willing to stretch out his short little arm.
How willing am I to do this?
The speaker told the story of a man who, as a ten-year-old, was made a sex slave and drug runner by a biker gang. When the boy was 16, he finally told someone—his uncle—but when that uncle turns up dead shortly thereafter, the boy knew he had to run. He got married and lived life, somehow completely forgetting/blocking those six years of his youth until one day he heard a voice from those years and it all came back to him. He wound up in the psychiatric ward and several days after his release, he called the speaker to pray for him.
The speaker didn’t want to pray for him. He didn’t know how to pray for him and yet the man was persistent and so the speaker went. Amazingly, the man fell to his knees and then flat out on his face. His body began to bounce up and down and the speaker looked at this, wondering what in the world was going on and how in the world a body could even manage to bounce like that. The bouncing didn’t stop and so finally the speaker left.
The next day he got a call from the man. “You didn’t tell me it was THIS good,” he said.
How did Jesus demonstrate the Good News? By going to people and delivering them from spiritual bondage. Have you ever thought of this? Every person healed means a family restored. It is God’s invitation, expectation and plan that the Good News will go through His followers each day, every day for the rest of their lives. Anyone can receive this Good News and anyone can give it away.
But how? How do we do this? We start now—just the way we are. In John 5:17, Jesus said, “My Father never stops working, so why should I?” (NLT) The kingdom of God is always expanding—with or without us. Jesus said, “I do what He’s doing.” Basically, Jesus wandered around the day, looking for what His Dad was doing and then joined in.
The speaker told the story of how he witnessed and then participated in his first healing. It was scary stuff. He and his friends were praying for a woman’s leg to grow two inches. What if it didn’t work? But it did! All he had to do was be willing to stretch out his short little arm.
How willing am I to do this?
posted by Magdaleine at 7:15 PM
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