Sunday, November 8, 2009

Another Testimony of God’s healing for me

Usual Sunday
This testimony happened on the Sunday 25th October, 2009. A usual, I would be in Church Sanctuary at around 7.30am in the morning. As in other Sundays, I interceded that morning for the day’s services and for my little “ministry” and for some individuals whom the Lord had placed in my heart to intercede for.

Break new ground, give effect to the words
This particular morning I arrived a little earlier and so had slightly longer time for this intercession hour. Over the last 2 weeks, 2 new prayers phrases had come to me. One, the earlier one, was this, “Break new ground.” In fact, this one came as a short song. The second one was this, “Give effect to the words”.

The first one is easier to comprehend, it is an asking of the Lord to break new ground – do a new work, break-through, in events, in situations, in people’s problems or lives.

A little about favor too
The second comes from a posture of cashing in on God’s favor. Favor of God is very important, even more so for people in ministry for the Lord. In the Parable of the Shrewd Manager, which we looked at in a separate article, not too long ago (click here to read the article), it was said in Luke 16:11, “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” I said in that article, favor with God would qualify as one of the true riches. The word favor implies fulfilling of a request out of goodwill. Favor with God is a previous thing; in another article of mine – Reserve glory and worship for God, practice honor, and grow in favor with God, I said people with God’s favor are capable of doing great exploits for God. In the context of words of knowledge and prophesy, the area of gifting that I move in, a little, favor is so very important. Was I 100% accurate, and precise when I moved in this gift of the Holy Spirit? No. Did I try to be? Yes. What happened in the times of shortfall? I believe that, that was when favor of God came in (but of course, not at the total exclusion of other factors). Asking God to give effect to the words given out is to spend my true riches that I have with God. And I ask not just effects for my own words but also for the words released by others. Moses, the great deliverer after Jesus, pleaded with God, after God’s refusal to travel with the Israelites, after the Golden Calf incident at the foot of Mount Sinai (you can read about this in the article last mentioned). This is how he pleaded, “O’ Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us.”

Pressing in
This morning, I kept asking God to break new grounds, and give effect to words that would be released, for more signs and wonders and miracles for the ministry times in the church services. I wanted the people who would come forward, to be healed, to be set free, to be ministered, to be helped. Such ministry times cannot be sustained by me or any other persons, but by God who does the work of ministering together with the Holy Spirit and angels. Whenever, I saw an “ebbing” in the ministry, including my own, I had to plead more with the Lord. This morning was such a morning. I remember telling the Lord that I had not witnessed people being slain (when prayed by me) for 2 weeks or more now. It was not that I must slain people, but ministry momentum must be watched. When it slows, we have to ask ourselves if there is anything wrong, and press in for answers or recovery.

Here is where it really began
There I go again, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the intercession, when I opened my eyes and got up from the kneeling position, I realized that a pain had come on, in my left eye. I was without the pain when I entered the sanctuary, and when I was prayer-walking the front of the sanctuary. I had a small swelling in my left eye, the common kind of tiny swelling at the lower eye lid, the kind that mothers would say you would get if you had been a peeping tom. But the pain got worse and it extended right into the head. As I raised my voice and exerted myself in singing aloud in the praise and worship session of the 1st Sunday service, it got even worse. By praise and worship time, it was all in the head, somewhere at the back of the left eye. Of course, this was not a word of knowledge through pain sensation. As far as I know, it does not work that way, why would God want to torture? It is not in his nature. Commonly, pain sensation would go away once I acknowledged it. I have heard others saying that sometimes the sensation would persist until word of it had been given out, or until someone responded. It is possible but I do not think it is the norm. Even if it were the case, the pain should not be torturing to the person used by the Lord.

Body parts from Heaven!
When it came to the time to give words of knowledge and prophesy, an anointed servant of the Lord, brother KH, shared that he had an impression that the Lord would rain down body parts for healing! What more could you add or ask? I straightaway remembered my morning intercession, and knew that many people would come to the front of the sanctuary for healing prayers, and I was right. I was still having the bad pain in my head, behind the left eye, but I had to work, right! In that session I first prayed for a man who had gone for an operation on a sensitive part of his body.

A knack?
After that, before I could think of whether or not I could get someone to pray for my “pain in the eye”, another man come to me for prayer. I sometimes wondered if I have been assigned a specialty like praying for people with physical problems of the kind that got to do with bones and muscles. Although I have had a dream in which I saw a person stood up from a wheelchair, right before me, in a scene that had more than one person on wheelchairs, I had not have any such real happening. Maybe, I had not prayed for many wheelchair bound people. Maybe, the time is yet to come. But I do get the feeling that I have a knack for praying for people with bones and muscles problems. If I did not get it wrong, many of the people who got slain in the spirit under my hands were people in this category. This second man who came to me, said he had aches and pains in the bones and muscles at various parts of his body because of a distorted curvature of his backbone. When I launched forth my prayer for this man, words came in quick successions and with strength. I soon got the inkling that he would fall under the power of spirit. There was no catcher behind him. These occasions just happened again and again - when there were catchers, people did not get slain, when there were no catchers, people got slain. The next moment I found myself trying to break this man’s backwards fall. I leaped twice, first, forward, to break the man’s fall, second, forward and to the right, on being somehow tripped by the man as he fell. I ended up just short of crashing into the first row of seats. It must have been quite a sight for those happened to be looking in the direction of where I was ministering. When I regained my posture, I could see there were others being slain, on the floor. I supposed the Lord had his way of ensuring that I did not land crashing into the seats or stepping on another human! I went back to the man lying on the floor; I bent down with the intention to pray further for him. I could see the Lord was already doing some kind of work on him – I could see he was breathing very deeply, his chest was moving up and down in big steps. He stayed down for quite a long time, 2nd to get up; the lady who was slain under prayers of brother Frankie was the last to get up. The man got up, came by me, thanked me, maybe he shook my hand, and went back to his seat. Had he been healed? I probably would not know unless he tells. Those who are healed by the Lord should try to report back (give testimony) so that people, including me, may be encouraged.

I was in pain even through the sermon
Back to the pain in my eye. Throughout the sermon time I was still in pain. Half of the time, I had to close my eyes and put my head down, to feel “better”. I was also contemplating whether or not, later, after the 1st service to ask my senior pastor to pray for me. I was thinking if I got questioned on why I did not ask for prayer during the ministry time when the anointing was clearly present, I would just say I was ministering to others.

Minister again despite pain
Surprise! Surprise, at the end of the sermon, another altar call was given. This time I went forward to minister to a lady. This lady had suffered much disappointment in her family. I must say I do not normally ask the Lord for a word for a person in such short ministry time, maybe only the duration of a song. But somehow, these words rang in me, “She is precious in God’s sight”. Then I felt I had to say it to her. So I told her that God said she was precious in His sight, and I repeated it, asking her to believe. I could see she felt the impact of the assurance, and I could see tears from her eyes. I asked a close-by lady to hug her. I believe the hugging further ministered to the lady. But what does this got to do with the pain in my eye?

It’s gone
What do you know! The pain in my left eye had left me. The Lord had healed me even as He healed the lady of her hurts. I believe it could have been at the time that I said she was precious in the Lord’s eyes that I was also healed.

Testimony and more
In the following service, the 2nd service, I was able to worship the Lord with no more pain in the eye or head. In fact, as I entered the sanctuary again for the 2nd service, I felt a pain in my lower back, I paused and after I acknowledged it as a word of knowledge from the Lord, it went away. In the time allotted for word of knowledge and ministry thereof, I gave testimony of my healing, and gave out words of knowledge. Indeed there was a person with a bad back problem. She hurt her back a couple of days before this, helping at the Padang, Indonesia where massive earthquakes had hit the place. After prayers, she experienced some relief and I trusted her to the Lord to continue the healing work in her for she responded obviously on both the testimony and the word of knowledge. In my prayer for her, I kept asking the Lord to remember that she hurt her back helping others in need, in a disaster area (She went from Singapore to give medical assistance to victims of the quakes in Indonesia). Lord, you please heal her completely.


Anthony Chia – My soul, my soul, learn to trust God, from even the small things God had done for you.

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