God has given us all that pertains to life, and we have the answers (2 Peter 1:3). We have a source that cannot be controlled by other humans, economics, armies, or any powers.

People are excited when they hear the voice of God’s scriptures declaring that all things are theirs to enjoy. It is God telling them to enter the supermarket and fill up their basket as often as they like. They go into the store with joy, but they are dismayed when everything they want is packaged as bags of seeds. It’s not in the form they were looking for! God promises us apples, but He rarely, if ever, gives us orchards or even a single apple tree. He gives us apple seeds.

People want instant gratification. The seeds God gives will produce everything they want in life, but they must plant them. The seeds will produce the image they project. They will grow. They will multiply just like any other seeds. God’s words are self-fulfilling. Jesus’ words are pre-programmed to produce the images of you and your life that He bought and paid for. His words are self-fulfilling in your life.

A tomato seed is pre-programmed to produce tomatoes. It does not matter how much the tomato seed would like to produce potatoes or how long it tries to grow them. It can only produce what it was programmed for.

Whatever seeds from God’s storehouse we plant, we will have the same harvest as God Himself would receive if He planted them!

What is Jesus looking for?  When He returns will He find faith? (Luke 8:18)

Faith is what Jesus is looking for!

If we take scripture at face value, it is clear that faith is God’s expectation of humanity.  An active trust in God’s Word is based on the finished work that Jesus Himself accomplished. When a man with an epileptic son came to Jesus for a miracle, the man asked if Jesus could do anything.  Jesus immediately responded, “Everything is possible for one who believes”(Mark 9:23).

The problem is not with Jesus! He is able. He is willing, and He is ready, but He wants to know if you believe He will do it.

“For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love” (Galatians 5:6, Message).

This faith works within the framework of love. Love is the foundation. GOD’S LOVE provides the motive for our confident belief. We trust God because we know He is a loving God.

Love was here long before contracts and covenants. Love is a selfless willingness to do good and right for all. The impossible can spring from this foundation!

Healing is as basic a promise as salvation, yet many have not come to grasps with the reality of our redemption.

The book of Psalms, the Prophet Isaiah, the Gospels and the Apostle James all point us toward a comprehensive salvation that includes forgiveness of sin and healing of sickness. How can we ignore such precious promises that are available to each one of us?

I think for most, it is more of an issue of not living in the light of God’s Word than it is ever a question of “Does God heal?” Yet, when physical difficulties arise the blame is placed on God. How can this be? He is not the author of sickness and disease! In fact, the scripture tells us in Isaiah that it was the will of the Lord to bruise Him and to put Him to grief and to make Him sick (Isa 53:10 AMP). God provided the solution for our sin and sickness by sending Christ to the Cross. How can we deny such marvelous news?

We must place the light of God’s Word in higher reverence than the reality of our experience in order to see the promises of God fulfilled in our lives. I must tell you that you were not born again when you felt like it. No, you were born again when you confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart. Healing works in the same manner. Just as a new Christian learns to live the life of a born again, saved person, so does a young Christian learn to live the life of healing and health that is promised to us by God through the prophets, the Gospels and the letters written to the early church.

Don’t allow your experience to determine what you believe, but allow God’s Word to transform your heart. Find a bible experience that confirms Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. It works! I have experienced it myself and I have seen this healing grace among the multitudes for nearly 30 years.

Go for it! Dare to believe! What do you have to lose? It’s available and it’s free because of what Christ has already done!

It isn’t the loudness or length of speaking that produces change, it is the words that are spoken. For example, we were in the capital of Costa Rica with a marvelous group of leaders and believers as well as thousands of other people.

We conducted over 21 meetings. We met with the president of the country. The national Christian television station broadcast all the meetings across Latin America. Our time there was building to a climax, when my interpreter decided he was tired and wasn’t coming to my final meeting. Tired?? One doesn’t get tired in the middle of a campaign! I found myself at the meeting with the music playing, 40,000 people waiting to hear the Word of God and be healed, and no interpreter! What would you do? What you believe really comes out in moments like this!

I told the choir to keep singing, then stepped down from the platform and walked among the people, looking for someone who could speak English. I finally found an old schoolteacher. He had just a whisper of a voice, but he could speak accurately. I told him not to worry. “I will preach with heart,” I said, “just say the words, and Jesus will back us up. Only be accurate with the words.”

My faith was in Jesus alone, and it was very lonely up there with the multitude waiting to see Jesus. My dear new friend whispered the message, and I prayed with great vigor for the manifestation of the healing power of God to make the people whole. My friend whispered the prayer, and it brought a great thunder of faith from their hearts and miracles began to flow. Many canes and wheelchairs were thrust into the air. Arms were lifted, and a parade of hurting humanity gave witness to the living God.

The next day in the town where I was staying, I was negotiating with an art store owner for a particular painting. He greeted me with a big smile and called me Pastor. I had never mentioned that I was a preacher, how did he know?

He said his wife had insisted that he go to the mass miracle meeting the previous night, and so he had stood way in the back. When I invited people to lay hands on themselves where they would like Jesus to lay His hand, he could not think of anything wrong except the golf-ball-size bone deformity he was born with on his lower spine. As he touched it, he felt it dissolve under his hand. He was so happy that Jesus revealed Himself, and he found Christ on that field. I have the picture that we haggled over hanging in our home today!

When the Church stopped taking responsibility for producing answers, then governments and other institutions started saying, “Look at us.” This relinquishing of responsibility for receiving miracle supply has caused the Body of Christ to slip into a corner of the world’s influence, when the Creator has said that we are to be center stage.

“The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence” (Eph. 1:23 Message).

God has given us all that pertains to life, and we have the answers. We have a source that cannot be controlled by other humans, economics, armies, or any powers!

For many, God working through them is a dangerous adventure. The question arises, “Will God meet me at the point of my decision? When I step out to help someone in need will I find God ready to move through me?”

I remember my first public healing encounter. I was having lunch with a business associate and suddenly I heard a scream from the other side of the restaurant. Immediately, I blurted out – I have to pray! I found myself running across the restaurant. A crowd was gathered around this man who had just had a heart attack. I remember telling everyone that I must pray.

The paramedics had not yet arrived so I forced myself in among the crowd and stuck my hand on his chest. I remember praying, “Oh Lord, heal him!”  All of sudden, I heard these words as if they were audible, “REBUKE THE DEVIL!” What a foreign concept to this young Baptist girl – the devil? Do WHAT??  So in my quivering voice I announced, “I rebuke you devil in the name of Jesus!” To my utter amazement the man coughed and sat up. He was healed! I later learned that this man had had five bypasses. When they took him to the hospital they could find no trace of the surgeries—he had a new heart!

This one incident has made me a permanent cliff hanger for Jesus. Who or what is a cliffhanger? It is a film, game, etc. which is exciting and full of suspense. Why sit around and watch TV when you can participate in the game of life?

I want to encourage you in your awareness of your ability. Scripture reveals that we are known and called from the foundations of time. We are not an accident and our uniqueness should always be considered a gift. Each of us has a special role that has nothing to do with the role of others. God alone gave us life and calling so He alone is equipping us.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” Ephesians 1:4

I want you to know that the Lord has always had His hand on you to help you in your calling. We live in a new era where each of us is a priest. The priesthood of believers. We who call on Jesus’ name are equally welcome into the throne room of our father.

 “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.”  Galatians 1:15

Our calling is to reveal the life giver. Jesus did for us what no man could do. He became the source of all things for this life and the next, and the world is waiting to hear it and see truth demonstrated.

When the ship was going down and all hope was lost, an angel appeared to Paul and said to be of good cheer, he must appear before Caesar. We all have a Caesar to appear before. We all stand in place of Jesus on this earth to speak of the unseen God to a searching world. You are called to your Caesars. Go to them!

People who encounter Jesus have not changed much in 2,000 years. Unless they are trained to understand the truth, they begin to just stand and wait for a gift from heaven instead of using the gift of righteousness that has already been given to them (see Rom. 5:17).

They stand in churches and wait for a sermon to inspire them. They stand in schools and wait for an education to anoint them. They stand in seminars and wait for the free gift of a prophetic word to call them out. But there is a real danger in waiting. It is the main cause for the failure of the Church structure today. Inactive people find themselves in a very destructive mode.

If you ask a beekeeper when the most dangerous time is to deal with a hive, he will say that it’s when the bees have stopped producing honey and the hive is full. Thousands and thousands of bees swirling around with no work to do causes great agitation. They begin to look at the beekeeper and each other as enemies.

That’s when they begin to sting.

Churches that have lost the larger purpose of outreach begin an inward-spiraling cycle of backbiting, scorn, and criticism. This is destructive to the church and the very people they are called to work with.

The angels are still crying out to people, “Why do you stand here waiting? There is no gifting better than the one you have: to be blessed with the indwelling presence of Jesus Himself. There is no training better than what you have: to be led by the Holy Spirit within. There is no prophecy better than what you have: to declare over your life what Jesus has already done for you, and who you are in Him!”

There is no need to wait for what God has already given. However, there is a need to believe in yourself, and that you are gifted by God Himself to carry out His purpose for your life.

John Wesley, founder of the Methodists, said, “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.” Prayer is the GOD-MAN vehicle for carrying out His will. We might say it this way, it seems as if God needs a person to agree, to be in harmony with His will, in order to act.

Now that God is in us, Jesus turns this privilege of agreement over to us by saying, “if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father” (Matthew 18:19). You are harmonizing your words. You are saying the same thing together with another individual. This prayer now becomes a PERSON to PERSON vehicle fitted together through the power of agreement, the consistency of our words and the like-mindedness of our asking.

Some time ago we held a “Festival of Music & Miracles” in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. There were two elderly women present in the meeting who had been friends for many years.  One of the women had eyeglasses with very thick lenses. She told me she had not been able to see anything without her glasses for forty years. The other woman said that she had suffered with pain in her legs for almost twenty-five years and could not walk without a cane. Both women listened as I shared this principle of agreement Jesus teaches us in Matthew 18:19.

At the end of the meeting they said to each other, “Okay, we are agreeing in prayer and asking You, God, to heal us. We believe that what You said is true, and if we agree, You will heal us right now. Father, in the name of Jesus we agree that our eyes and legs are made whole!  Amen.”

It was such a simple but powerful moment of commitment as suddenly both of them were healed! They started shouting right away, “I can see!” “I can walk! My pain is gone!” You could not miss the joy on their faces. They stood out like two beacons of light in a very dark corner of the world.  Jesus said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them”(Matthew 18:20).

I remember traveling to Mexico and working with the Oaxaca Indians in the remote mountain villages. After many days of outreach the time came for a brief break from our activities, so we headed to the city for a day of R&R. I awoke the morning of our city adventure with the room swirling around me. I couldn’t believe it…I had food poisoning! I finally had the opportunity to relax and WHAMO! I was fighting horrible symptoms.

Over the years I have learned that when symptoms attack my body, I begin speaking. My flesh wanted to be sick and stay in bed. But I got up and started declaring, “I am healed by the stripes of Jesus! I thank you Lord. You are touching me with Your healing power – right now! And body, listen to me… “By His stripes I am healed!”” (Isaiah 53:5 emphasis mine)

I declared His Word not once, not twice, but for nearly an hour. Suddenly, faith arose in my heart and as quickly as the symptoms came they disappeared.