Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthian church and tried to capture the idea of what God has done for them. He was grasping for the best idea to convey how God saw them in the earth today, and of all the ways he examined, he decided that the best description of a Christian would be that of an Ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Wouldn’t it be strange if the American ambassador to another country was afraid to stand up and say, “I represent America”? What would the American government do if the ambassador was afraid to state its point of view?
An ambassador is the sent one of the U.S.A. Do we think he or she is being arrogant if they declare that they are sent to a certain country on behalf of the U.S.A.? No! That’s a good thing and we expect them to do that! So why do people in Christian circles accuse others of being proud or arrogant when they do the same thing acting as an ambassador of heaven?
As an ambassador I have a right to speak for the Kingdom as long as I am speaking the message of the Kingdom, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These are the words of my country.
The devil knows you are an ambassador, and God knows you are an ambassador. When are you going to realize that you are an ambassador? In Acts 19:15 the demon spoke to the seven sons of Sceva, “Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you?” The devil will know you if you take a stand.
An Ambassador does not have to pray to act as an ambassador. He does not need to pray to exercise his or her authority. All they need to do is act like who their government says they are. They don’t need to pray to get their passports stamped or have their visits approved. No, an ambassador has the power to act and they don’t wait around to do their job. Don’t wait on heaven anymore. Act today!
We have received many testimonies of people who received their healing as they discovered the reality that Christ died for them.
How does this happen? When they call on the name of the Lord for salvation from their sins, they are united with their heavenly Father and peace enters into their hearts. This peace replaces the turmoil and stress that has plagued their lives, and when that peace enters in something happens…their bodies are instantly healed!
Many times they don’t even know when the healing happened. They only realize that the Prince of Peace now lives in them, their sins are forgiven, and peace is now reigning in their physical bodies!
Many people don’t receive their healing because they do not understand the continuum of time.
I can think of many instances of this in our meetings from around the world, one particular woman in Kazakhstan comes to mind. She was a worker at the Italian embassy and had a vision problem, needing glasses in order to read properly. She had been attending the healing meetings during the week and was hopeful that something would happen, but so far had not noticed any changes.
We would serve tea on the breaks, and this woman came up in the line behind my husband to get her cup of tea. I remember this very specifically, she picked up the tea bag and when she did, she began to shout, “I can see! I can see! I can see!”
She had prayed for the healing for her eyes and though it did not happen instantaneously, later in the week she picked up the teabag and could read the fine print on that teabag.
When did her healing begin? Her healing began on the day that healing was ministered to her—on the day that she believed she received!
The church has settled for a knowledge of the miracle worker without the miracles.
Years ago there was a Wendy’s Hamburgers commercial where a little white haired lady famously demanded: “WHERE’S THE BEEF??” Where are the works? Have we settled for a meatless hamburger?
If Jesus needed miracles to validate His ministry, how much more do you need miracles to validate your ministry? Why should someone of another religion leave their religion and accept your Jesus as the way and the truth? They have a black book and you have a black book. They have morals and you have morals. They have a history and you have a history. What do you have that they don’t have?
The answer is a living Jesus and the proof of that is miracles. Christianity is the only form of worship in the world that can be validated by miracles that no witchdoctor or psychologist can duplicate. The whole history of God’s intervention in the affairs of mankind as recorded in Hebrew scripture is that of miraculous intervention.
Jesus continued the tradition of miracles and we as His followers after Him continue in this same fashion!
We were preaching in Mariupel, Ukraine, at the top of the Black Sea. There we stayed with a Pastor who had a church of four hundred people. I noticed that the Pastor had no phone and no car. In conversation I asked him, “How can you minister to your flock if you can’t talk to them or visit them?” He told me communication was very difficult and He spent much time on the trolley busses.
That night I challenged the church to pay to connect a phone in his home. All agreed, but with half of his church unemployed and the others only making fifty dollars a month it looked like the biggest miracle in the world to his congregation. Some waited for a phone for thirty years because they couldn’t afford to pay the required thousand dollars.
I encouraged the congregation to trust God to use them as a source to purchase the phone. I asked how many would allow God to use them as a channel of supernatural blessing, and most agreed.
The next night as we were about to begin preaching, a salty old sailor came up to us with big tears in his eyes and shouting, “I’m the one! I’m the one!” I watched him approach thinking, you’re the one? What does that mean?
He continued, “I’m the one to give the phone! I stood up last night and committed, and when I got home I received two phone calls from foreign shipping companies. They have asked me to work at European salaries for the next two years. I’ve been unemployed for two years!”
Only when more people will stand up in their faith and pledge to a Godly cause will we see more miracles of supernatural supply in the body of Christ!
By faith you can receive your miracle from God. Confess God’s Word over your life, “By His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). In faith come to God in prayer and say, “Lord, in Your Word You said that by the stripes of Jesus I am healed. I believe and I receive my healing from You!”
You know, sometimes I don’t feel well either. For example, if I have a cold and my throat is sore and I can hardly lift my head off the pillow, my flesh wants to be sick and stay in bed too. But instead, I start proclaiming the Word of God, “In Jesus’ name, I am healed by the stripes of Jesus! I strongly believe in it and I thank you, Lord, that You are touching me with Your healing power! And now, body, listen to me…” And I start speaking to my body, head, throat and to all the symptoms. I proclaim that I simply cannot be sick because I am already healed by the stripes of Jesus Christ.
This is my faith. This is what Jesus calls “faith,” and it’s very important!
Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you”(John 15:7 author’s emphasis).
He reveals that the power of His Word in your mouth is as powerful as rain upon the earth. When I lived in a desert for three months it became easy to appreciate a little rain. Hidden seeds that lay dormant for years under the sands would spring forth immediately when drops of life from above would fall.
We experience this in our crusade meetings all the time. A little word will bring to life a dormant dream hidden for years in the hearts of people. A word spoken releases a healing from above for those trapped by cancer, lameness, deafness and all types of disease.
“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it”(Isaiah 55:10-11 author’s emphasis).
God’s Word in your mouth on any subject carries the same weight as if Jesus Himself were speaking. Spoken in faith, it is never empty or ineffective. It brings the rain of blessing from heaven on a cloudless day.
Keep saying what God says and the earth will yield its abundance to you!
Several years ago my husband and I preached the Gospel in Africa. Every day many people gathered together and eagerly listened to the Good News. From the first day, I noticed a young African man who was disabled. He moved around on his knees on a special small cart that he had made for himself. I cannot even call it a cart; it was rather a small board on wheels. Crawling on that board, he developed big blisters on his hands and knees. Every day he would crawl to our meetings with the hope of getting a miracle, and God did heal him! The Lord responded to that man’s faith, once again showing everyone that He has an immense love for all of us, and that He desires to change the life of everyone who asks Him!
A large crowd of people that was present at the meeting saw how that young African man, whose legs had been paralyzed for many years, ran up on the stage with a cart in his hands screaming, “Look! I can walk! Look at me! Look!! My legs are moving! Just a few minutes ago I had big blisters on my hands and knees that would never heal. And now, look, those blisters have completely disappeared!”
Full of joy, he knelt back on his cart and showed everyone how difficult it had been for him to move around in that cart for so many years. Then he stood up, pushed that cart aside and walked down the stage!
This is what the Lord does! He wants to heal all people, and He can!
Understand that God knows where the opportunities are and will readily open them to you! He is on your side. When you run up against a closed door and there are no open doors at all, He will make one for you.
In Astana, Kazakhstan, our team leader and the local organizers came bearing bad news on the day the tent was to go up on the palace grounds of the Muslim president’s own central park. This was going to be a first for Christianity, as no Christian evangelist had been allowed to preach in the capital before and here we were next to the palace grounds in the heart of the city.
The bad news was a flash flood had covered the grounds with six inches of water. The local administrators were planning on abandoning the site, but we rose up as we have done before and said, “NO! We’re keeping the site. Now let’s start draining it.”
In our efforts to try and drain the field, a man with a dump truck drove by and felt compelled to give us eleven truckloads of sand. He was an angel on assignment from heaven, even if he did not know it. It was enough to cover the ground for the big tent so that we could start on time. It was a miracle idea for a miracle moment. God is involved in the affairs of men!
I believe there are moments that transform a life. Your future doesn’t always hinge on the long hours you put into building your present. A new person, new opportunity, or new thought can set you on a dramatic new course.
One of those moments occurred in my life over 30 years ago when a small, $1.25 book called “The Believers Authority” was put into my hand. I had already made my decision to follow Jesus, but a few words from that book shot into my heart: it was not a special anointing, or special education, or special will of God that would change my future. But rather, it is the authority God has given to me already that must be exercised over the devil, the flesh, and circumstances that will be the major determining factor. He had already defeated my enemy, and it was up to me to do something about it!
This took me from stagnation to action. This empowered me for today instead of waiting for tomorrow. This energized my value of decision for destiny, over resignation to circumstance. Understanding what God has done for you and in you, and that His expectation is for you to use it, is a defining moment. He will not do what He gave you the right to do.
Discover this, and you are on your way to an exciting life!