Miracles, Signs, and Wonders

Around same the time that my spine - which was deformed due to a hip dislocation which occurred at birth - was miraculously healed, Pastor Mark was out of the country preaching the Gospel in Papua New Guinea, and God was stretching forth His hand performing mighty signs and wonders in the name of His holy child, Jesus. It was reported that around the same time I received a mighty miracle whereby God, by His mighty power, rearranged my mutilated and twisted up spine, God was also doing a unique thing in Papua New Guinea of miraculously healing backs.

Since Pastor Mark's return, we've seen film clips from the missions trip which included footage of an out-of-control demoniac child miraculously and gloriously set free from captivity, a young man born deaf hearing and speaking for the first time in his life, swelling in a gland from tuberculosis going down right before the eyes of all viewing. We saw people going out under the power of God as they were led into the waters of baptism right after giving their lives to Christ and coming up out of the water under the power of God as well. It was reported that many awakened and rose up speaking with the glorious language of heaven by the power of the Holy Ghost being uttered from their lips for the very first time.

When asked why the miracles are not happening in the United States like they are in other countries - especially those less developed - Pastor Mark replied, "They are! What are you doing?"

Perhaps the miracles are not happening on the same scale as in other countries where people aren't predesposed by doctrines of man and of devils to resisting the Holy Ghost, but they are happening nonetheless. It is suggested that if more people were believing the Gospel and being doers of the Word of God and not merely hearers only, the miracles would be happening on the same scale - if not on a larger scale.

A Jog Through the Blogs...

Occasionally, after I check my friends' posts who maintain logs here at Blogspot, I'll click on the option to go to the next blog the system chooses to bring up.

And, blog after blog, I find so much pain, so much anguish from a generation lost, a generation who does not know God, who does not know this hope that we have in Christ alone!

And it's no wonder.

The church, herself, especially here in the USA, thinks that she's got it going on, that she's got this thing down - almost as if she doesn't need God because she is able to feed and clothe herself and has this thing called salvation all figured out, yet she has not even the power to cure a headache. Oh, but she has this thing she relies on called deductive reasoning, philosophies, and ideologies to explain away her lack of power. And, if we funnel, filter, and melt it all down it essentially boils down to this: God retired and went on vacation to some unknown place like the Bahamas and told us to have a nice time trying to figure out what He expects of us and to leave a message on the machine so He can be sure and get back with us in the next millenium.

Not so!!! God has not changed!!! God's Word has not changed!!! He is still near to anyone and everyone who draws near to Him! Jesus said He would not leave us here like orphans to try and fight our way through this thing on our own! No! He said He would go to the Father - and He did! And He said that in going to the Father He would send the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who would lead us and guide us into all truth! He is here! He is still doing everything He's been doing in the church since the day of Pentecost! It is we, the church, who have backed away and changed not God! Jesus said He would be with us always - even to the end of the world!

And, yes, The Holy Spirit is every bit as much God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and Jesus Christ is God!

This is a Laodicean age if ever there was one and a Laodicean generation if ever there was one. Jesus said to the church of the Laodiceans:

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write: These things says the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God,

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot.

So, then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spew you out of My mouth.

Because you say, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing" and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,

I counsel you to buy of Me gold tried in the fire that you may be rich, and white raiment that you may be clothed and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear, and anoint your eyes with eyesalve that you may see!

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me.

To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me in My throne even as I also overcame and am sitting down with My Father in His throne.

He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Revelation 3:14-22

Church, we'd better get it right! We'd best wake up from our sleep and our slumber and quit thinking we're "all that" and sitting on our "Blessed Assurance" thinking the laurels are all ours and sitting on them too while an entire generation groans and writhes in pain, groping through the darkness, looking for a ray of light of the manifestation of the sons of God!

WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP NOW BEFORE THE BLOOD OF THIS GENERATION IS REQUIRED AT OUR HANDS!!! Our life is not our own!!! We have been bought with a price!!! This is God's salvation purchased for us in Christ Jesus' own blood! He is King!!! He is Lord!!! We don't get to make this thing up as we go! There is a pattern set before us in His Word, and this is the pattern we must follow - and not by our own strength, our own might, our own ability or understanding but by the power of the Holy Spirit of God! If we're not following this pattern, we do not have it right! We'd best not think that we do!

A Miracle!!!

I have received a miracle - a true miracle from the Lord!

Last night in church, Geneva preached the Gospel with all boldness and with passion and began to endeavor to provoke us to have a move of God in our own lives - not just in church but during the rest of the week as well! After she preached the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, she called those up for prayer who needed healing. I went up for what I thought was a healing of a spot in the middle of my lower back that had been suffering pain from an injury over 2 years ago.

But as I was standing in the prayer line, it occurred to me that I actually needed a miracle in my spine as my whole back had been messed up, basically, my whole life. I was born with a hip dislocation, and it messed up my spine. I had a s-curve in my spine, but I guess it wasn't the kind of s-curve that they could diagnose as scoliosis. By the time Geneva got to me to ask what I needed healing for, I told her that I was pressing in for a creative miracle in my spine. She spoke the Word of the Lord to me. She said that when the children of Israel left Egypt, and there was not one feeble one among them. Why? Because they were covered in the blood (of the Passover lamb). She asked me, "Are you covered in the blood (of Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world)?" I responded with all boldness, 'I'm covered in the blood!'

As I was lying on the floor under the power of God, I eventually realized that I wasn't in pain. For the first time in my whole life, I was lying on my back, and it didn't hurt! I'd never been able to lie flat on my back without extreme discomfort. After I got up, I told Geneva that I was without pain for the first time I could remember in my whole life. And I went back down under the power of God. When I got up again, I sat down in a chair, and I noticed that I was sitting up straight, just like they told us to in school. I noticed that my spine was touching the back of the chair, and I was able to sit up perfectly straight, with both feet firmly on the floor - without pain for the first time ever! I had such a deep sway in my back before that I could only get my spine against the back of a chair by slumping or by concentrated effort with pain.

Whenever they would tell us to sit up straight at our desks in school, I would just sit there, suffering in silence thinking, 'But it hurts to do that.' I didn't know that wasn't normal. I just thought they were trying to add one more bit of torture to the daily routine (my school years were such that I thought that shool was nothing more than a glorified torture chamber where they torture little kids like little kids torture bugs and other little kids, but that's a whole, 'nother long story in itself for another time perhaps).

I was always told that the way I was sitting was going to cause me to have back problems later on in life. And, sure enough, over the years - and especially in the last 2 years - my back has progressively gotten worse. After the Lord did what only He could do, every moment I was discovering something new that I couldn't do before - some little thing that most people can do so effortlessly that they take it for granted. I was doing neck rolls - to the glory of God - and nothing was crunching. The rolls were smooth, not interrupted by some painful kink here, or there, or everywhere my neck would turn. I could do things with my arms that I couldn't do before without pain or discomfort. When I stood up it felt differently standing on my own two feet. Both feet were firmly planted on the floor, and I was standing up straight. Walking was different. Everything was different! I literally left an old decrepit body behind, and everything was made new!

I didn't even know how crippled I was until after I was healed. Had not a clue. I thought that what I was living with in every day life was normal! But now I know that pain is not normal! Limited mobility is not normal! I have muscles that have perhaps never been activated before. When I told my mom this morning about what happened, and how I could sit up straight in a chair without pain or lie flat on my back without extreme discomfort, she said she never knew that I lived like that even as a kid. I told her I didn't know that there was anything to tell. I didn't think anything of it; it's what I'd lived with from the time I was born. How could I tell anyone? I mean, you don't tell someone about something that's just part of "normal" everyday life anymore than you'd tell someone that you're breathing, right?

When I was driving home from church, with a brand new back, a brand new spine, the memory of all the little kinks that used to be were still fresh enough in my mind that I could see where it was all leading. It was leading to my trying to walk around as a little old lady all twisted up and knotted up, all hunched and bent over. But God had another plan. Jesus said to a bunch of Pharisees who were all bent out of shape because He healed a hunched over woman on the Sabbath, “You hypocrites! Which of you won’t untie your animals and lead them to water to drink on the Sabbath? Ought not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound for these past 18 years, be loosed from her bondage?”

I don’t know if you can fully comprehend what it’s like to know nothing but pain in your back and hips from the time of your birth to suddenly be free from pain. I can tell you for sure by experience what I didn’t know before. PAIN IS NOT NORMAL! I now have a taste, for the first time in my life, that not being able to have full functionality of your body or to have to operate around pain is NOT NORMAL!

This is what is normal and right to expect: Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing (not kinked up, crunched down, and bent over!) to show that the Lord is upright (in all that He does). He alone is my Rock, and in Him is no unrighteousness whatsoever!!!

Lord, You are good, and Your mercy endures forever! Thank You so much for setting me free!!! Jesus, there's nothing about You that isn't wonderful! And I need You more today than I did yesterday. And I love You more than I did 2 seconds ago! :)

You're so good!!! I want to be with You forever! Thank You for making a way. :) I love You!

God's Rejoicing???

I'm going to give this new blog a whirl...

When I woke up yesterday morning, this is the scripture that was in my heart, and periodically throughout the day I would meditate on it:

The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty; He will save; He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in his love; He will joy over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

When I look around there is so much for God to be displeased with - and I'm not talking about with people who do not know God. No, there is still mercy for the lost and dying world. I'm talking about His very own people who call themselves by the name of Christ yet forsake Him by rejecting His Holy Spirit and all that was won for those who would call on His name at the cross according to Mark 16:15-18.

Even myself. I find myself caught up in the cares of this life hesitant to lose my life that I might find it in Him. God's mercies are so great it's easy to be in denial about the severity of the words which Jesus spoke - which will, by the way, judge us in the last day. Where can one look to find a hungry soul who longs to see the power of God and the manifestation of the Son of God in the midst of His people as in the day of Pentecost? Oh no. These are civilized times. There are bills to pay, and shoes to buy, and a commute to make in the morning where I'll build another man's kingdom. I see soooo many similarities between modern-day Christians and the ancient Israeli children in the mud pits making bricks without straw or Sampson with his eyes plucked out grinding meal for the Philistines in this way we've been living out this so-called modern-day Christianity...

In John 14:12 it is clear enough that God already purposed in His heart that those who believe in His Son, these will do the works that Jesus did while still in the earth and greater works than the works He did because Jesus was going to the Father, to sit at His right hand in heaven after His death, burial, and resurrection from death.

Where are these greater works? For that matter, where are the works? When is the last time anyone heard of a citizen of the U.S. who was born blind receiving their sight as a result of being touched by supernatural power from on high in the name of Jesus Christ? Oh, occasionally, someone gets a token cancerous tumor disappearing or pulls through heart surgery by the grace and mercy of God. But where are the limbs growing back which were lost in wars and accidents as in Jesus' days on the earth? Where are the restored withered hands? Where are the widows' sons being raised up from out of their coffins to be given back alive to their mothers? Perhaps in 3rd world countries where there are no other options but to believe God, believe the Word of the Lord?

In case one cannot tell, I am highly dissatisfied with the way things are. I was vehemently against anything and anyone calling themselves Christian before I had an encounter with Christ for myself that changed me forever. Before that encounter, I thought the only thing that Christianity had to offer was either a bunch of mean people who serve a God who's mad at everybody or a gaggle of mamby-pamby girlie-man whiner-baby doo-doo heads! Now that I am counted among those who name the name of Christ, what am I to think when the evidence still points to my prior observations? And what am I to do when I find myself wallowing in very mire I loathed as an unbeliever?

The Psalmist and these words come to mind...

In the Lord put I my trust. How say you to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain."?

For, lo, the wicked bend their bow; they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.

If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do?

The Lord is in His holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold; His eyelids try the children of men.

The Lord tries the righteous, but the wicked and he who loves violence His soul hates.

Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest - this shall be the portion of their cup!

For the righteous Lord loves righteousness; His countenance does behold the upright. Psalm 11

I see this, and my soul can be at rest. I don't have to get worked up about anything. All I have to do is walk with God and trust Him. He will cause His light to shine upon the upright in heart, those who've set their hearts to walk with Him, to walk in His word excluding no part of His Word - no matter what the naysayers, and the gainsayers, and the opinion polls say.

I will trust in You, Lord. I will give myself to You with my whole heart.

I'm only doing this so I can post on Blue & Glory's blog!

Dag-nabbit!

Ya had ta be that way, did ya?

Well, I reckon you guys are worth it.

Now...back to that hilarious blog Blue wrote...