Lay Hands On The Sick!


 

So it’s Monday morning, and I have some confessions to make.  Sometimes, I’m not as bold with my faith as I’d like to be.  Sometimes I am so caught up in my own stuff that I avoid contact with people I don’t know especially in public places.  Sometimes I can fit the stereotype of a writer/hermit.  Sometimes while I think people who are bold with their faith are awesome secretly I would rather hide.  Don’t get me wrong, when I’m behind a pulpit I am a bold person.  I would pray with anyone, and declare Jesus in their lives and their 2nd cousins named Bob…grin…  However, when I’m in Wal-Mart and God gives me a prophetic word for a complete stranger, my reaction can be a bit different.  Sometimes I’ve been known to be disobedient, and sometime I have stepped out in faith. 

I have an old friend who used to joke with me that for every convert people bring in they get a set of steak knives.  It’s a joke, but it is the way non-Christians can sometime view Christians who are always trying to evangelize wherever they go.  Its fear of not wanting to look like ‘that guy’ that stops me sometime from ministering to ones that God really urges me to.

I think many Christians fall in two extremes in this category.  There are the ones who will tell everyone about Jesus (which is awesome, but can come across as a bit of a salesman), or the ones who never say anything (and that’s not doing what God wants us to do.  He wants to go and preach the gospel to all nations which includes people outside a church Matt 24:14)

You find the balance here by being led by Jesus in these situations.  When you stay open to be used by God wherever you go, He will use you and send you to those who are open.  It may be a subtle urging, but you’ll know that God wants you to talk to this person or that one.

In Acts 3 when Peter and John healed a man sitting at the Gate Beautiful, they’d passed that man dozens of times before that day, but as he called out for help they knew God was leading them to pray for his healing. That was the day of that man’s healing.  He did recover and it was one of those public miracle scenes that brought many into the Kingdom. 

While I was in Canada a few weeks back, my family had new pictures taken, and the photographer started to complain about her ear.  While I typically don’t go looking for situations to pray for, in this situation she was complaining. I have started to try to make it a habit when someone mentions sickness or pain, then I offer to pray for them.   Before I talked myself out of it, there in the middle of the store, I asked her if I could pray for her.  She said yes.  Honestly I think she thought I meant at home later, but instead I laid hands on her ear and declared the power of Jesus in her hearing.  While I don’t know if she experienced any miracle or not, and may never know on this side of heaven, I do know I felt the power of God on the situation.  I do know that while I’m not perfect at doing these kinds of things out in the marketplace this time I did before I could talk myself out of it.  I do know at least I was obedient. 

Mark 16:17-18 (ESV)
And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

            Christians, me included have spent too long being afraid of being ‘that guy’ instead of seeing that there is a lost and dying world that is desperate for a supernatural touch from God.  If we as believers refuse to take it to them, then how will they ever know?

            I am making it a new commitment.  While I’m not turning into ‘that guy’ I do want to learn to stay more open when I’m in public.  If God tells me to pray for someone, I do it. Maybe I start a conversation with them on a plane, or just give them a smile then I’m going to endeavor to do it before I can talk myself out of it.  I’m going to see the world in front of me, and dare to open my mouth.  I encourage all of you to do the same.  It’s not about earning a set of ‘steak knives’ but it’s about souls that desperately need Jesus.  If we are to be Jesus on the earth, than isn’t it time we act like it?

            God has awesome plans for your life, and the world around you.  Get excited!

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

....And I broke the Pickle Jar

Image
Last week my oldest daughter came running to me for help. I had just bought a new jar of pickles and she could not open them up. Surely, Mom could do it and this was going to be an easy thing. I sometimes wonder how they get those lids so tightly on jars in the factory. I was not going to pull the wimp card but I could not get that lid off. I tried banging the bottom with the palm of my hand. I saw someone do that once. It did not work. I tried twisting it, and it would not budge. I even tried getting a butter knife and breaking the seal by trying to wedge it between the lid and the jar. Nothing was working. Dan was not home and even if he was, I really hate admitting when I cannot do something like this without his help. I was going to get that jar open! Finally I took the opposite end of a butter knife and whacked at the lid. I thought a couple smacks would make the jar open, and it did. Evidently, I do not know my own strength. With the sound of breaking glass crackin...
Read more

Spiritual Motion Sickness?

It is well known in my family that I have a history of issues with motion sickness. I don’t remember when we officially discovered this: Maybe it was the time that I spent the day at the pool in the sun and then was put in the back seat of my grandparents fairly new car to travel through the hills of Southern Ohio and I puked everywhere that told us this, Or maybe it was the time my uncle decided to travel through the mountains of Gatlinburg with the side door open in the van. Perhaps it was the issues I had with vertigo as a child but whatever it was it was learned early on that I would be fine as long as I got to sit in the front seat. I am better as an adult however; I still cannot read in a long car journey. Many people suffer from spiritual motion sickness. They have become nauseous spiritually and they do not understand why. Just like how one gets motion sickness in the physical it applies spiritually. James 1:6-8 (NIV) 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, b...
Read more

Don't Fall For the Fake Jakes!

I hope all of you had an awesome Resurrection Weekend! He is Risen!! Several weeks ago I had someone claiming to be T.D. Jakes begin communication with me on twitter. At first I brushed him off thinking there was no way he was the real T.D. However this individual was persistent. We began exchanging a few direct messages back and forth. He then proceeded to invite me to go with himself and several other ministers over to Japan to preach over there. That was when I told him to email me at my website email. The conversation continued. At first I didn’t believe at all this was the real T.D. Jakes. However the more we exchanged emails the more I really thought it might. His phrasing on how he worded things sounded like the real T.D. The text emails were coming from Texas, and it was obvious this man spent a long time familiarizing himself with T.D. and his website because of the way he wove legitimate things about the real T. D. into the conversations. This went back a forth for several we...
Read more