Who do you say I am?
I call his name from the hallway and I hear his legs propel towards me. I look into his face of wonder and I ask, ‘Jamesy… can you help me?’. I’m standing before carrier bags full of groceries and he weaves his way through as I hand him one side of the bag. ‘Oh thank you, Jamesy’ I tell him, ‘you’re so strong, I’m so glad you helped me’.
The question isn’t whether or not I need a two year olds strength to aid me in carrying the bags, because I don’t. Surely instead it’s that I love his company, I delight in his and his efforts, though weak, knowing he gets to feel like a champion at the end.
And it’s no different; my Father calls to me- ‘Megan…will you help me?’ Does He need me? No. Yet, does He want me, boy oh boy does He want me!! And because of that I raise my hand to say yes, it’s not enough to be called, I want to be chosen.
The day the church understand the reality of the Spirit of the living God dwelling within them- will be one of the finest realities this world has ever seen. We’ve spent too long crying out ‘Come Lord Jesus’ to a Spirit who is already in us and amongst us. Hours of prayer meetings are spent beckoning forth an open heaven, missing that they’ve been open since the day Jesus broke forth from the Jordan with John at his side. We stand, much like the apostles in Acts 1:10 being asked “why are you staring into heaven?”, for willing Jesus’s return won’t bring Him back any quicker. Instead, a present falls into our hands- a light, brighter than the sun, whispering a people to ‘Arise’ (Isaiah 60:1), He’s hungrier than us for the miracle that is here and waiting- heaven through our hands.
The problem then, isn’t that He’s not here, maybe it’s just that His children don’t know how to host Him.
Instead, we become a church largely overfed, hopping from conference to conference, church to church, reading books, doing bible studies and soaking ourselves in worship. We’re receiving but the problem is we’re never giving out- fed but never feeding. See, what use are the words of a conference if not put into practice, a sermon if simply memorised, the bible if not coupled with action… surely it’s theology? If we’re just going to ‘do’ church, we may as well be the WI or a darts club. Jesus didn’t tell people He was a healer and leave people unhealed- He didn’t tell a demon possessed man that He could cast out demons and then leave him to manifest. So why do we do the same? We proclaim God as healer, lover of people, and of the lost, but walk around as if we don’t know His healing power or don’t know a cure for the broken and lost. As long as we continue to pursue theology without action, we’ll remain a church largely unhealed.
The problem for many of us is that we become overfed whilst remaining injured- never able or considering to look outward whilst our problems fester inward. We hold the answers, yet, why do we often remain some of the most pained people of all? We work so hard for things that come out of intimacy with Him- You want healing from your past, grow in intimacy with the father, you want dreams for your future, grow in intimacy with the Father.
We become healed, free of ourselves, confirmed in identity, healthy in relationship with our husband, friends and family, and full of joy- because we are Jesus to those who’ve never seen Him for themselves. We’re walking testimonies of God’s power- not the bickering family life, the struggles of work, the lack of joy, or the stress of life. God put that to death- how can we be fully effective if we’re still clinging to the boyfriend of 89′ or the hurt of a friend from our childhood. We spend so long attempting to build ourselves into a people invincible whilst being a people so easily shaken. We work so hard in building ourselves through secondary means when God is crying out for His children to come to Him.
For so long I functioned under a ‘yet to be healed’ past. The problem was, it was already dealt with I just kept clinging on to it. My identity had so long been bound to it that for a time part of me enjoyed being a helpless case. I’d walk into church after having spent less than an hour with God all week, and wait for the pastor to call out the word I needed to respond to, walk to the front, be prayed for and walk out much the same- trying to receive without laying anything down. See I was chewing the cud on something God had paid the price for 2,000 years ago, remaining an orphan in the king’s headquarters. God didn’t die on the cross for me to confirm each month that I really am healed or forgiven. If that is happening, the devil is continually getting his way by keeping us in the circles of fear, guilt and shame. When God died on the tree He wasn’t the only one nailed there, I was nailed with Him (Colossians 3:3). Are the things of my past part of my journey, yes. Do they define me? No, He does. I live free because He has made me free- not partly free- fully free. No cost went unpaid. He wants us well, healthy and healed.
That’s when I understand it’s never been about me, but Him in me and me in Him. That’s when I understand I need to get over my self so I can help others overcome. I used to think the Holy Spirit encountered those He loved most, so when He fell on me, I thought it was because I’d earned His affection. It wasn’t until I questioned why the Holy Spirit landed on people, and took my eyes off myself that I realised He encounters us not only because He can- because He is God, but He encounters us so we leave changed.
“after this prayer the meeting place shook, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.”
Acts 4:31 reads, ‘after this prayer the meeting place shook, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.’ We don’t stand shaking, fall to the floor or feel wind sweep through a place, to simply generate a cool testimony to tell a friend. God overcomes us with the weight of His glory, so we act and live in light of the glory. Those in Acts didn’t just get filled, and then go home to sleep, they went straight to preach the word with boldness. We need to start walking by and through the power in which we’ve been changed.
I believe we’re selling the gospel short if we don’t want miracles, and if we’re not manifesting the person of Jesus, chances are we’re doing something religious. We’re commanded all throughout scripture to ‘heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons.’ (Matthew 10:8) I don’t know why that is so overlooked. That’s a commandment, so why do we make it second to the commandments we abide by daily.
Maybe we’re making it hard. Chris Gore- Healing pastor at Bethel said: ‘it was never intended to be hard- It was intended to be impossible.’
I remember when I first met Jesus, the majority of my time spent with Him felt as if it was me telling Him how hungry I was for Him to see miracles, people saved, and desiring the gifts whatever the cost. And though I know He valued what now seems such a selfish cry to Him- He so gently, took me off my high horse and taught me that thanksgiving precedes the miracle. So, I started to thank Him all the time for what He was doing, and had been doing though it seemed I saw nothing tangible. Thinking it was my prayers that would heal, my faith that was dependant on the miracle, or maybe it was a God who was in a bad mood and decided only every now and then to heal. I’d made it all about me, and the God I didn’t really believe was good.
And then one night, after church, sat on one of the pillars in exhibition road, I laid two fingers on my friend’s knee and I prayed ‘knee be restored’. On the word restored, I felt the knee pop twice, and in disbelief, I looked up at her..’DID YOU JUST FEEL YOUR KNEE POP…TEST IT OUT!!!” Moments later, she is bouncing up and down with a brand new knee. Before I know it, I am stood, tears streaming down my face on top of the pillar shouting to whoever will hear me if anyone needs healing. I spot a man some feet away who is stood by a dustbin truck looking at me like I’m a crazy child (& what). I approach him and begin to speak: ‘My friends knee has just been healed and I’d love to pray for you…’ we continue for a while, he’s adamant that nothing needs healing. ‘C’mon I tell him, now’s your time to get a brand new something… ‘Mid-back’ I say to Him, ‘you get some pain in your mid-back’. He looks at me ‘yeah I do’: I pray over his back a first time and he tests it and a second and a third (God prayed for a man without sight twice, (Mark 8:23-25) I take ounces of comfort from that). ‘Do something you couldn’t do!’- and he bends over and touches his toes.
You see, it doesn’t take those with a beam of holy light over them to walk in a life of miracles. I am a healer and evangelist because God says I am. Isn’t an evangelist someone who preaches the gospel? And isn’t everyone supposed to do that? I’m just someone who thinks that it’s not just enough to be called, I want to be chosen (Matthew 22:14). I ask, dwell with Him, believe that He is what he says He is, and how can I not see. I wasn’t that person a few months ago. yet, it becomes easy as soon as we stop making it about us.
Somewhere it became about the faith in our own faith, or the prayer we pray when it’s not our prayers that heal anyway. I cried the other day reading the words about the mustard seed. I’d read it, sang it, told others about it- but hadn’t grasped it. For, i read it with the revelation that we are not the generators of our faith. Isn’t faith a gift? Hebrews 12:2 says, ‘Jesus the author and perfecter of faith”,and Romans 12:3 “God has allotted to each a measure of faith.’ Anyone with the spirit inside of them, possesses faith, therefore I believe God is saying that ‘faith as small’ doesn’t even need to be acquired, we already have it within us. The faith we have is enough. If a situation was dependant upon how much faith the individual has, it makes it about the individual and not about God. The problem then is not the faith within us, for that is God’s measure, the problem is our minds not knowing what we have. The problem is faith in the wrong thing, faith in ourselves.
I want to function in that place daily, not because I want to hit targets or because I want a mountain top experience, but because I know the Father’s heart and I see an open heaven so I’m going to grab the miracle. I’m 0.2% along the journey of where I want to be with Him. If I feel overwhelmed with Him now, oh hearken that day when I will stand before the throne and see my bridegroom face to face. But before that day when I get to place my hand in His, millions of captives are crying for freedom. Does He need us? No, does He want us: Yes.