I've SO been wanting to write on here all this past week. I got busy helping with and attending a church retreat, but I was writing a great new post in my head (Rest- Your Final Key to Victory in Every Situation). However, over the weekend at the retreat and also again this morning, the Lord start reminding me of some things He spoke to me several years ago. It has been burning in my heart this morning and I know I need to share it with you all.
Before I came to be home, full time, with my husband and daughter, I was on staff at a youth ministry. My official title was Associate Youth Pastor, but my working title was always Operations Manager. While I so much treasured the opportunities to teach and minister, the biggest part of what I did was to manage all of our volunteer teams and project manage events. Aside from our weekly ministry at the church, during the summer we also did several large-scale youth ministry conferences in correlation with the adult Believers Conventions at Kenneth Copeland Ministries. When we did those events, I also managed all of the volunteer teams on the road and one of the things I always did, was gather everyone up first thing in the morning and devote time to focusing on the Lord to see what He had to say to us. To feed on Him and be empowered for our long days of ministry.
During this particular summer of 2008, I was reading Destined to Reign by Pastor Joseph Prince. I could not put the book down. Every spare second I had, I was reading, highlighting and taking notes. During conventions, those spare seconds were few and far between, our days of ministry were quite long. We started with an early morning session, that speaker would no sooner finish and a 2nd session would immediately start. We then had a break for lunch and came back for double afternoon sessions, quick dinner and big evening session... for five days straight! Towards the end of the week, we always devoted one of our mornings to what we called "Healing School". We taught on God's will for health, the perfection of the sacrifice of Jesus and all the cross accomplished for us. We would teach these young people how to appropriate the gift of healing that had been secured for them.
All summer long, the Lord had been ministering to my heart on healing. I had been watching some teachings from Andrew Wommack and felt really encouraged to type out every Scripture and instance in the New Testament where Jesus or His disciples laid hands on the sick and they were healed. I typed them out and as I would read through them daily (often many times a day), I would envision myself being the one laying hands on people and calling the sick whole. I was Peter speaking, "Silver and gold I do not have, but such as I have, I give to thee, in the Name of Jesus, rise up and walk." I was constantly meditating on these stories and the Lord was speaking to me so much about healing-- how it is His desire for all Believers to not only be whole, but to lay hands on the sick and see them recover.
Well, this particular morning had come for healing school and I found myself awake in the early hours of the morning talking to the Lord and read just a few pages in Destined to Reign. It just so happened on the morning of Healing School, that I was at the place in the book where Pastor Prince was talking about an explosion of healing miracles that they experienced at New Creation Church when the people began to focus NOT on themselves or their own faith, but began to fix their eyes on Jesus, on the cross. As I was reading this, I was physically overcome by the presence of the Lord and experienced a momentary vision. It was as if I was looking out from behind Jesus' eyes while He hung on the cross. I remember vividly that I could hear His heart beating-- something like you would hear in a movie sequence where someone was dying-- it was loud, intentional and slowing, He was dying. In those last moments, everything went black as Jesus became blind, His heart beat slower and then I could no longer hear as He became deaf and then He died. I realized in that moment how FULLY He had borne every type of sickness and disease in the perfection of His sacrifice at Calvary.
If you haven't read my first post, The One Man, I talk at length about how fully Jesus fulfilled the demands of God's holiness on the cross. Sickness and death, degeneration in our bodies are all a result of the sin that entered the world through the one man, Adam. If not for that sin, we would have no sickness. Jesus fully paid the price for sin with the perfect sacrifice of Himself, thus undoing all of the effects of sin, reversing every curse. Consequently, the more we understand our righteousness in Him, the more we will understand how fully our bodies have been set free from sickness and disease. "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed," Isaiah 53:5.
Going back to this particular morning as soon as this short vision had ended, I looked at the clock and saw that I should have left at least ten minutes earlier to lead morning devotions with our volunteers. I ran from my hotel room through downtown Fort Worth to the convention center to meet with our team. The presence of the Lord was so tangible and strong. As I stood before them to tell them what the Lord had just shown me, there was such a hushed reverence and awe of Him. I can hardly explain it, I just know that what the Lord ministered to me, He ministered to them and it was overwhelming goodness. We all went into the meeting hall to meet with the rest of our team-- usually we would all pray together with the worship team, but the Lord had been ministering to them all morning and their practice session had turned into a time a sweet worship. We all just entered into the presence of the Lord, closely. They were singing an old song, "You deserve the glory, You deserve the honor. Lord we lift our hands in worship as we bless Your holy Name. You are great, You do miracles so great. There is no one else like You, no one else like You." I remember standing there is total awe of the Lord and the only words I could get out were these, "Lord, I can't even sing these words, they are not enough to say of who You are." He answered back to me, "If you want to show Me your love, give the people Jesus."
The Father loves the Son so much-- in the Son is the fullness of the answer to everything we will ever need. He has given us everything in Jesus. He LONGS for His people to see all we already have in Him.
In that moment, I knew exactly what He wanted me to do. One of my sweet volunteers had found lumps in her breasts in the weeks leading up to that time and I knew at that moment, we were discerning the sacrifice of the Lord to the extent where healing was flowing freely. He led me to pray for her, to curse the cancer and declare her body whole in the Name of Jesus. After the convention was over, she had a chance to go to the doctor and was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, but she chose to believe what the Lord has already said to her and knew that she had already received the fullness of her healing. Sure enough, even before she had her scheduled surgery to remove the cancerous mass, she demanded that they do one more ultrasound. The technician performing the scan, didn't know the particulars of her case, but asked her when she had her surgery since it was obvious the cancer had already been removed. All because of Jesus.
We went on with our morning session of healing school and at the end, I was called up front with a team to lay hands on anyone who was wanting to receive healing and desired someone to pray with them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some of our security team bringing an older lady my direction. It struck me as odd. With being over all of our volunteer teams and over all of the areas (such as security and registration), I know that we have really strict policies about who can be in that room-- especially where adults are concerned. To protect our young people, there are no adults aside from youth pastors they attended with. Every adult goes through a check-in process, has to fill out a form and leave their drivers license at the registration desk to even step into the room. But they brought this older lady to me and she began to share her story. She was losing her eyesight. She had been sitting in the adult services and the Lord started talking to her, told her to get up and walk across the convention center to the youth meetings. The voice of the Lord was so strong, she just knew she needed to listen. She told me, "I felt like the woman with the issue of blood trying to get in here since they don't allow adults, but I knew I was supposed to come down here, that I was going to be healed today. As soon as they finally let me in the back of the room and I saw you, I knew you were the one who was supposed to pray for me." As I laid my hands on her, I just saw Jesus there with me-- I placed my hands in His and just allowed myself to be the vessel He flowed through as her eyesight was restored.
This is what it means to give the people Jesus. To just know Him on a level of intimate affection, to see who He is, to allow Him to flow freely through you. I know there's not an ounce of me that can take one iota of credit for anything the Lord used me for then or will ever use me for. As I was walking to lunch after this amazing service, I was just talking to Jesus as if I could see Him physically there with me. As I walked down the street, I saw a crippled man who looked like he was probably homeless. Jesus said, "Ask that man if he wants to be well today," and I did not. Even though the Lord had just done and shown me all of these amazing things. I know now that I need to know Him even MORE so that I would never question or shrink back from any opportunity that He wants to use me for. I'm so thankful there is no condemnation in Him, but that I can use that missed opportunity to seek Him even more. To know His love for me even more, to know the power of the cross even more. So that next time when He says, "Ask that man if he wants to be well today," I will know it has nothing to do with me, my ability or my faith, but that He, the True Vine, just wants to flow through this little branch. Thank you Lord!
The more you know Him, the more you will know of His great love for you. The more you know of His love, of all He has already accomplished for and in you, the more you will love Him and find yourself being obedient to whatever He asks of you.
When I got back to my hotel room, I saw my bedside table lined with several medications I was on at the time. Just a few months before, I had emergency surgery for an ovarian cyst that had become so large, it began to cut off the blood supply to my ovaries, but was successfully removed. The surgeon said that when they got inside, they also found a great deal of endometriosis that they removed. Afterwards, I was on several medications to "protect my fertility" for the future and to hopefully keep the endometriosis at bay. I was told it would likely be very hard for me to ever conceive a child. But as I looked at those medications and reflected on all the Lord had done that morning, I heard Him say, "You know you don't need those anymore." I threw them away that very moment. This was August of 2008. A few days after this convention ended, I met my husband! We were engaged just two months later in October of 2008, married in March of 2009. Less than 10 months later, we found out we were expecting our first child, Holiday Jane who arrived perfectly in 2010. The Lord is good. Jesus is amazing-- so much more than we even know. I pray as the Apostle Paul did that they eyes of our understanding would be enlightened that we may come to know the hope of HIS calling-- to see all that Jesus did and accomplished for us and all that is available to us through Him.