I have been slogging my way through the Major Prophets (currently, Ezekiel) in my devotions recently. I say slogging not because I don't like the books, nor because I am finding nothing of interest or relevance; rather because it is hard to sit by and read about Israel's continued obstinance. The book describes their sin in gruesome detail, and sheds a bit of light on why God is so upset. In one of the books, God says that they did things that didn't even enter God's mind to do. The Israelites sacrificed their children in a burning idol to Molech. That hadn't been something that even entered God's mind for them to do. To me that speaks about the creative ability that God has given us - but I'll save that tangent for another blog.
The books that I've read recently are pretty heavy - yet scattered all through them are pockets of God's redemptive promises. This morning's read, for example: Ezekiel 34. God is rebuking the shepherds of Israel for neglecting their duties to feed them, and for taking advantage of the sheep (and eating them). Then God goes on to say how He would do the things the shepherds of Israel failed to do: seek out the scattered flock, rescue them, bring them out from the nations, and take care of them.
As I was reading this, it came to mind that obviously this was a Messianic prophecy - a passage fortelling the characteristics of the one whom God was going to send to save Israel, and furthermore the world - Jesus. It was interesting to discover the source of many references that Jesus makes during His ministry.
Here are a few that I came across:
1. Ezekiel 34:14-15: "I will feed them in good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the LORD God."
I know this one's not strictly from Jesus' ministry, but it does correlate: Psalm 23:1-2 "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters."
2. Ezekiel 34:16: "I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy [or, I will watch over]. I will feed them in justice."
Luke 4:17-19 [Jesus at the synagogue in Nazareth]: "And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.'"
Luke 19:10: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."
3. Ezekiel 34:15: "I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep"
John 4:23: [Jesus speaking to the woman at the well, answering her question of which mountain is the true place to worship God]: "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him." I know this doesn't seem to directly compare, but it says to me that God was promising a direct relationship with his people. Shepherds guide, lead, protect, teach their sheep directly. Jesus takes out the question of location in worship and speaks of a direct relationship with the Father.
4. Ezekiel 34:17-22: "As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet? Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep."
Matthew 23:1-4, 13-15, 23: "Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe what they tell you--but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger....But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in...For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves....For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you have ought to have done, without neglecting the others.""
5. Ezekiel 34: 23, 24: "And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken."
John 10:14-16: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."
John 6:35, 48-51, 53-58: "Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst....I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."...So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood lhas eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As othe living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”"
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Monday, September 5, 2011
Friday, October 22, 2010
God Healed My Back!
I want to start by saying that a few years ago, God gave me a vision. He showed me a door frame with a curtain hanging from it. I was standing at the edge of this doorway. The curtain fluttered in the wind, and I saw almost like a starry night behind it. I knew that behind that curtain was so much more to/in God than I could imagine, and I knew that it would look different once I stepped through it than what it looked like from this side of the doorway. I wanted to go through that doorway, but I didn't know how.
After I got off the phone with Pastor George last year in regards to taking the youth pastor position here, I had a decision to make. I knew that if I stayed in the Lower Mainland, I could get a good job, have a great youth group and ministry, but I'd never go through that doorway. I knew that if I went to Port Hardy, God would take me through the door.
Well I have to tell you, God has taken me through that doorway. As I've told many of those who know me, my entire paradigm of how I thought God worked or didn't work got turned upside down this past year. It started with a question of "why couldn't he work like that?" and evolved to "God does work like that. In fact, he works any way he likes and I have no idea what he's going to do next."
On Tuesday, the 12th, God healed my back. You all know how much time and money I've spent on Chiropractors - my mom can attest to that. For any of you who don't know, when I was 20 I injured my back though a weekend of intense physical activity - a lot of heavy lifting, chopping wood, and a four-hour horse ride. Since then I've gone to the chiropractor in Maple Ridge, and then when I couldn't afford to keep going, stopped. I put out my back in 2008 when I was in White Rock, and again shortly after I moved to Port Hardy.
We've been having a 9-day conference focusing on healing, miracles, God's power and stuff. I have seen a deaf guy get healed, I've seen a guy walk in on two canes and at the end of the night run and dance out, without the canes, I've seen a baby's stomach get healed, I've seen people get touched with the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. My youth have been touched by God, and are now praying for people with boldness. And I myself have had some crazy encounters with God that I can't even begin to describe. One of them, like I said, was when God healed my back.
God had started something on my back on Oct 11th, Monday night, but it wasn't finished, so I went up for prayer on Tuesday night. My pastor's wife prayed for me; I went down on the floor with the power of God, and from that point on, for next hour and a half I felt like I was at a "cosmic chiropractor". My hips, which had been twisted and my left higher than my right, from my spine being out of alignment, all of a sudden moved where my right came up and my left came down. From there, God worked up my back, twisting me and arching my back, and doing what felt like to me deep chiropractic adjustments. Like I said, this went on for an hour and a half. And then he sat me up a couple times and started stretching me and rotating my back. Then he moved me into ballet stretches and warm-ups. Now, I have not taken ballet. The only dance training I've had is one year of mixed dance in grade 10, and only one unit was beginning ballet. So the girl that was filming me has taken dance for most of her life; she recognized that I was going through ballet warm-ups. Then God danced me. And I am serious when I say God danced me - I had no control over my limbs. It was like being led in a dance, only not from the outside but from the inside. I was fully aware of what was going on, just not in control. (Though I tried to control it at first, which resulted in some funny collisions with chairs and stuff. After that I yielded, and God led me in dance). I danced to music that was in the background at church, and did moves that I've never done, with a grace I have never had before. Michelle (the one trained in dance) told me later that part of the reason she knew it was God and not me was all the technical stuff, like posture and my feet/hands positions, that I couldn't possibly have known. Then, after 15 minutes of dancing, with no elevated heartrate, no sweating, no breathing hard - God did cool-down stretches and movements with me. Michelle and Caleb (who has also taken dance) said that I was doing a bar routine. At the very end, God had me pray over Michelle, and then Caleb - again, Him moving me - and Michelle told me later that I had been on point when I was praying over Caleb. Point is the most advanced position a ballerina can do - it's dancing on the very tip-toes - which I have never done. And I was in bare feet.
There's more to the story, but in a nutshell, God healed my back. And I have a video that was taken of the tail end of the healing and almost the entire dance. I've uploaded it to Youtube in two parts, both of which I am linking onto this email. I am totally amazed, still am, that God healed my back, and then danced me. It was the most incredible experience I have ever had.
After I got off the phone with Pastor George last year in regards to taking the youth pastor position here, I had a decision to make. I knew that if I stayed in the Lower Mainland, I could get a good job, have a great youth group and ministry, but I'd never go through that doorway. I knew that if I went to Port Hardy, God would take me through the door.
Well I have to tell you, God has taken me through that doorway. As I've told many of those who know me, my entire paradigm of how I thought God worked or didn't work got turned upside down this past year. It started with a question of "why couldn't he work like that?" and evolved to "God does work like that. In fact, he works any way he likes and I have no idea what he's going to do next."
On Tuesday, the 12th, God healed my back. You all know how much time and money I've spent on Chiropractors - my mom can attest to that. For any of you who don't know, when I was 20 I injured my back though a weekend of intense physical activity - a lot of heavy lifting, chopping wood, and a four-hour horse ride. Since then I've gone to the chiropractor in Maple Ridge, and then when I couldn't afford to keep going, stopped. I put out my back in 2008 when I was in White Rock, and again shortly after I moved to Port Hardy.
We've been having a 9-day conference focusing on healing, miracles, God's power and stuff. I have seen a deaf guy get healed, I've seen a guy walk in on two canes and at the end of the night run and dance out, without the canes, I've seen a baby's stomach get healed, I've seen people get touched with the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. My youth have been touched by God, and are now praying for people with boldness. And I myself have had some crazy encounters with God that I can't even begin to describe. One of them, like I said, was when God healed my back.
God had started something on my back on Oct 11th, Monday night, but it wasn't finished, so I went up for prayer on Tuesday night. My pastor's wife prayed for me; I went down on the floor with the power of God, and from that point on, for next hour and a half I felt like I was at a "cosmic chiropractor". My hips, which had been twisted and my left higher than my right, from my spine being out of alignment, all of a sudden moved where my right came up and my left came down. From there, God worked up my back, twisting me and arching my back, and doing what felt like to me deep chiropractic adjustments. Like I said, this went on for an hour and a half. And then he sat me up a couple times and started stretching me and rotating my back. Then he moved me into ballet stretches and warm-ups. Now, I have not taken ballet. The only dance training I've had is one year of mixed dance in grade 10, and only one unit was beginning ballet. So the girl that was filming me has taken dance for most of her life; she recognized that I was going through ballet warm-ups. Then God danced me. And I am serious when I say God danced me - I had no control over my limbs. It was like being led in a dance, only not from the outside but from the inside. I was fully aware of what was going on, just not in control. (Though I tried to control it at first, which resulted in some funny collisions with chairs and stuff. After that I yielded, and God led me in dance). I danced to music that was in the background at church, and did moves that I've never done, with a grace I have never had before. Michelle (the one trained in dance) told me later that part of the reason she knew it was God and not me was all the technical stuff, like posture and my feet/hands positions, that I couldn't possibly have known. Then, after 15 minutes of dancing, with no elevated heartrate, no sweating, no breathing hard - God did cool-down stretches and movements with me. Michelle and Caleb (who has also taken dance) said that I was doing a bar routine. At the very end, God had me pray over Michelle, and then Caleb - again, Him moving me - and Michelle told me later that I had been on point when I was praying over Caleb. Point is the most advanced position a ballerina can do - it's dancing on the very tip-toes - which I have never done. And I was in bare feet.
There's more to the story, but in a nutshell, God healed my back. And I have a video that was taken of the tail end of the healing and almost the entire dance. I've uploaded it to Youtube in two parts, both of which I am linking onto this email. I am totally amazed, still am, that God healed my back, and then danced me. It was the most incredible experience I have ever had.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Healing - why not?
Ok. So another shot at updating my blog.
I am always amazed at the teaching hand of God in my life. He constantly grows me. Pastor George likens it to God working out the hard crusty bits in clay. Occasionally I look at my life and I think, "Oh, there's another one!"
God has been definitely working on my faith in him. Amidst the prophetic words spoken over this place and given to people in (and not in) this congregation, we as the leadership team (and the church) have really tried to "lay hold" of the promises of God to move in power and in the miraculous, and in the transformation of human lives.
A couple Saturdays ago we had a work bee here at the hotel. We wanted to get some work done on the sanctuary (the former strip bar). George was sanding, sanding, sanding away, and as happens he was covered in drywall dust. God then gave him a vision of him putting drywall mud on Deb's eyes. Now Deb had been diagnosed with some major cataracts. She was scheduled to go into surgery yesterday. She had been squinting, and complaining that she couldn't see, everything was foggy - she could hardly read a piece of paper in front of her. I know. I had to read stuff to her.
So God gives this vision to George. He was to take two specific ladies and have them up there with Deb so that they could lead her to the bathroom to wash off the drywall mud. Initially George was like, "But God, that's kind of your thing, not mine!" But George decided that it was better to be a fool and have it not happen than miss out on what God was going to do.
So the next day at church, George does this. He calls up Deb and the two ladies, and he tells us what God had shown him, and applies drywall mud to her eyelids. He prays for her and the ladies lead her to the bathroom.
She tells me later that when she was washing off the mud, she looked up into the mirror and the fog cleared away as if a curtain was pulled.
George prayed for her again after she got out of the washroom, because it was not complete - but every time he prayed it got clearer and clearer. The other day she said, "I can see the stop sign up at the top of the hill!!!" I can see that only because I have contacts!
As someone who knows Deb and live with her (practically, she lives in the same hallway with me and we hang out all the time) I know that her eyes were not that good before. I know that God has healed her! Hallelujah!!
Here's where my faith is challenged. I know healings happen. I myself was healed of lactose intolerance. My friend had told me that through Christ's death on the cross we have healing (see Isaiah 53) and that I just needed to receive it. So that night I went home and thanked God for healing me of lactose intolerance. The next morning I had a bowl of cereal with normal milk - where before I could only drink Lactaid milk and have lactaid pills if I had anything even remotely containing dairy. When I got home from school that day, I had two bowls of ice cream. And I was fine. I never have had to drink lactaid milk or use lactaid pills again. But I have never seen healings of stuff like broken bones or missing limbs.
But I think: why not? Really. God can. And God has. And God IS WILLING. I struggled with that for so long. I thought, maybe God wants me (or whomever) to be sick so that they can learn something. Perseverance. Dependence on Him. Or whatever.
But you know what? I think I am changing my thinking on that. Just because God is amazing and can bring good out of the bad - because he is good and never misses an opportunity to show his love - doesn't mean that the bad originates with him. Like, if healing was provided through the cross, then why would God then go back on what he's provided? Suffering produces perseverance. But is suffering sickness? Not necessarily. So we don't have to accept it. As George explains, Jesus prayed "Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven"....and there is no sickness in heaven. So why should there be here?
So really, why not? God is willing to heal us (look at the dude who said to Jesus "You can heal me if you are willing" and Jesus said "I am willing") and he gives us his power through his Holy Spirit. All things have been given to us. We are to be armed with His mighty strength.
What I have been trying to do lately is pray for people's infirmities with authority. Like, no wimpy prayers of "please heal him, maybe, if it's your will, or help him to get better quickly"....but how about "that sickness is not supposed to be here so we command it to go in the name of Jesus!" You know? Like, get indignant in my spirit about the injustices put on the people. Of course pray with discernment and tact and wisdom....but not lacking in the spiritual authority that God has given me.
A couple months ago, while George was playing the drums in church, he felt the urge to call out with a word of knowledge that there was someone with a hernia (or pain in their side, and he described the spot). A woman in the congregation hadn't told anyone but she had a hernia and she was scheduled to go for surgery. He called it out, and it was healed. Like, bulge gone and everything. Praise God!
I don't want to lay down and roll over when there's a spiritual battle going on. If this stuff isn't supposed to be here, then I don't want it. I want the wholeness that God promised through his word - physical wholeness included! And I want to be obedient to pray for that stuff too!
I was reading the Local Church Constitution for the PAOC today. It is littered all throughout how we believe in divine healing and that we are to encourage and practice praying for the sick. Why would we bother having that in our constitution if we shouldn't do it? Why would Jesus model it if we shouldn't do it? I don't know about you, but I want to see people healed - not just for the "cool factor" but because it will display God's glory and his love as he heals people who were broken!!! I know several people within even my own family whom I would love to see physically healed.
So I challenge you: pray for the sick! Don't accept that it's supposed to be there so that you can "learn a lesson" or something else. Jesus prayed for the sick - so should we. It's part of discipleship. And you know what? Believe that it will happen!!! Because really....why not?
I am always amazed at the teaching hand of God in my life. He constantly grows me. Pastor George likens it to God working out the hard crusty bits in clay. Occasionally I look at my life and I think, "Oh, there's another one!"
God has been definitely working on my faith in him. Amidst the prophetic words spoken over this place and given to people in (and not in) this congregation, we as the leadership team (and the church) have really tried to "lay hold" of the promises of God to move in power and in the miraculous, and in the transformation of human lives.
A couple Saturdays ago we had a work bee here at the hotel. We wanted to get some work done on the sanctuary (the former strip bar). George was sanding, sanding, sanding away, and as happens he was covered in drywall dust. God then gave him a vision of him putting drywall mud on Deb's eyes. Now Deb had been diagnosed with some major cataracts. She was scheduled to go into surgery yesterday. She had been squinting, and complaining that she couldn't see, everything was foggy - she could hardly read a piece of paper in front of her. I know. I had to read stuff to her.
So God gives this vision to George. He was to take two specific ladies and have them up there with Deb so that they could lead her to the bathroom to wash off the drywall mud. Initially George was like, "But God, that's kind of your thing, not mine!" But George decided that it was better to be a fool and have it not happen than miss out on what God was going to do.
So the next day at church, George does this. He calls up Deb and the two ladies, and he tells us what God had shown him, and applies drywall mud to her eyelids. He prays for her and the ladies lead her to the bathroom.
She tells me later that when she was washing off the mud, she looked up into the mirror and the fog cleared away as if a curtain was pulled.
George prayed for her again after she got out of the washroom, because it was not complete - but every time he prayed it got clearer and clearer. The other day she said, "I can see the stop sign up at the top of the hill!!!" I can see that only because I have contacts!
As someone who knows Deb and live with her (practically, she lives in the same hallway with me and we hang out all the time) I know that her eyes were not that good before. I know that God has healed her! Hallelujah!!
Here's where my faith is challenged. I know healings happen. I myself was healed of lactose intolerance. My friend had told me that through Christ's death on the cross we have healing (see Isaiah 53) and that I just needed to receive it. So that night I went home and thanked God for healing me of lactose intolerance. The next morning I had a bowl of cereal with normal milk - where before I could only drink Lactaid milk and have lactaid pills if I had anything even remotely containing dairy. When I got home from school that day, I had two bowls of ice cream. And I was fine. I never have had to drink lactaid milk or use lactaid pills again. But I have never seen healings of stuff like broken bones or missing limbs.
But I think: why not? Really. God can. And God has. And God IS WILLING. I struggled with that for so long. I thought, maybe God wants me (or whomever) to be sick so that they can learn something. Perseverance. Dependence on Him. Or whatever.
But you know what? I think I am changing my thinking on that. Just because God is amazing and can bring good out of the bad - because he is good and never misses an opportunity to show his love - doesn't mean that the bad originates with him. Like, if healing was provided through the cross, then why would God then go back on what he's provided? Suffering produces perseverance. But is suffering sickness? Not necessarily. So we don't have to accept it. As George explains, Jesus prayed "Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven"....and there is no sickness in heaven. So why should there be here?
So really, why not? God is willing to heal us (look at the dude who said to Jesus "You can heal me if you are willing" and Jesus said "I am willing") and he gives us his power through his Holy Spirit. All things have been given to us. We are to be armed with His mighty strength.
What I have been trying to do lately is pray for people's infirmities with authority. Like, no wimpy prayers of "please heal him, maybe, if it's your will, or help him to get better quickly"....but how about "that sickness is not supposed to be here so we command it to go in the name of Jesus!" You know? Like, get indignant in my spirit about the injustices put on the people. Of course pray with discernment and tact and wisdom....but not lacking in the spiritual authority that God has given me.
A couple months ago, while George was playing the drums in church, he felt the urge to call out with a word of knowledge that there was someone with a hernia (or pain in their side, and he described the spot). A woman in the congregation hadn't told anyone but she had a hernia and she was scheduled to go for surgery. He called it out, and it was healed. Like, bulge gone and everything. Praise God!
I don't want to lay down and roll over when there's a spiritual battle going on. If this stuff isn't supposed to be here, then I don't want it. I want the wholeness that God promised through his word - physical wholeness included! And I want to be obedient to pray for that stuff too!
I was reading the Local Church Constitution for the PAOC today. It is littered all throughout how we believe in divine healing and that we are to encourage and practice praying for the sick. Why would we bother having that in our constitution if we shouldn't do it? Why would Jesus model it if we shouldn't do it? I don't know about you, but I want to see people healed - not just for the "cool factor" but because it will display God's glory and his love as he heals people who were broken!!! I know several people within even my own family whom I would love to see physically healed.
So I challenge you: pray for the sick! Don't accept that it's supposed to be there so that you can "learn a lesson" or something else. Jesus prayed for the sick - so should we. It's part of discipleship. And you know what? Believe that it will happen!!! Because really....why not?
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