Sunday, April 6, 2008

Friends

I was a prayer minister at a church in Kingwood a couple of years ago. Bishop & Betty Cox and Jack and Anna Marie Sheffield led the weekend. We had wonderful praise and worship and anointed teaching on community and healing that weekend.

On Saturday afternoon a woman walked in the sanctuary and said what is going on at my church. Her friends were so excited, they had begged her to come. She forgot it was the healing weekend. Her friends drug her as she protested up the center aisle with her oxygen tank in tow.

Turns out she drove by the church, saw the parking lot jammed with cars and wanted to see what was going on at her church and why she wasn't invited. Well...she found out what was going on at "her" church.

It reminded me of the paralytic in the Gospel of Mark, Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

We don't know if he asked his friends to take him to Jesus or he fussed all the way up to the roof and all the way down as he was lowered into the room, but we know he found Jesus and his body, soul, and spirit were healed. He walk out of the place. His friends had compassion and took him to Jesus.

The ladies dragging the woman up the aisle had been praying for several hours she would show up for the healing service. Her friends stopped in front of Jack and said please pray, the poor woman was grey, so thin, had terminal lung problems. She looked at Jack and yelled You know this won't work don't you. Jack said let's pray. He prayed for her, listening to the Holy Spirit and asked the Lord to give our dear sister a fresh revelation of His love. She yelled I am unlovable. We kept praying, her friends were praying, all the sudden she turned bright pink, started yelling, jerked the oxygen tube from her nose and said my chest is on fire. She took her 1st deep breath in years and was totally healed. She kept saying He loves me, He loves me. I was weeping.

The next day she was at church w/o her oxygen, went to the dr. that week and declared healed. Many things happened in connection with her healing. The friends had the faith like the paralytic's friends, the prayer ministers had faith, this dear woman knew for the 1st time in her life God loved her and Jesus died for her. Was her body healed that day, oh yes; but more importantly her soul and spirit were healed. She became whole in Christ Jesus.

Don't give up, keep praying....miracles happen every day....be like the friends of the paralytic and carry your friend spiritually to Jesus unless you have the opportunity to drag up the center aisle at church.

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