Testimonies...Building blocks of faith

Every few months or so I'm going to blog about testimonies that I've read or heard. Testimonies are great building blocks of faith, and we each have our own. Occasionally we should reflect on the good works God has done in our own lives and in the lives of others. It helps jump start our faith when we go through seasons of doubt and drought. God is always faithful to His Word, and testimonies prove it. I want to share three with you today, I hope you enjoy them. Feel free to share one of your testimonies too. 

I was finishing a meeting one day in Switzerland. When we had finished the meeting and had ministered to all the sick, we went out to see some people. Two boys came to us and said there was a blind man present at the meeting who had heard all the words of the preacher, and said he was surprised that he wasn't prayed for. They went on to say this blind man had heard so much that he would not leave that place until he could see. I said, "This is positively unique. God will do something today for that man." We got to the place. This blind man said he had never seen; he was born blind, but because of the Word preached in the afternoon he wasn't going home till he could see. If ever I have joy it is when people are not satisfied until they get all they have come for. With great joy I anointed him and laid hands on his eyes, and then immediately God opened his eyes. This is from Smith Wigglesworth. I could write a book on his testimonies alone, and will share more another time.  The man didn't leave until God fulfilled His Word!

The second is from Pastor Daryl Waller, a man that went to his former church. This man was humble, God fearing, and gentle. He and his wife had a daughter in college at the time. She didn't live at home but was still nearby. The man got a call from the school one day asking where his daughter was. He said, "Well, she's in school of course." The lady said, "This is the school. Your daughter hasn't been to class in over three days." He immediately hung up the phone and began to weep. His family was pretty close and he couldn't understand why his daughter would just leave. (This was back before we all had cell phones.) Days went by without hearing a thing. He started to expect the worst. He laid on his kitchen floor one night weeping and praying to God, asking where his daughter might be. He heard a voice in His Spirit say "KFC Madrid Spain." He got up, called the operator and asked for KFC in Madrid Spain, I believe there was only two at the time. A man answered, He asked if there was anybody there by the name of .......... He heard the man ask, and then he heard his daughter's voice in the background! She got on the phone, apologized to her father, and requested to come home at once. Now that's powerful!

Lastly, I heard this one on the radio yesterday. It's a piece of history from Dallas Theological Seminary. In 1926, the Seminary only being a few years old was about to go under. The lenders had called and were ready to start the process. The very last day they had in the building, the leaders gathered to pray one final time. Lewis Chafer, and two other men began praying asking the Lord for a miracle. Lewis began, "Lord the cattle on a thousand hills are yours. Would it be possible to sell some of them? We're really in a pinch here Lord." (Now that sounds funny, perhaps it was meant too, but the speaker was very sincere.) It wasn't but a few minutes later a gentleman walked into the lobby of the school and handed the secretary a check. He said, "I'm not sure if you need this or not, but I believe the Lord put it on my heart to give this to the school. I just sold a bunch of my cattle and didn't know what to do with the money other than what I'm doing now." The man had cowboy boots and a hat on. The secretary knew the leaders were in the back praying. She walked in and handed the check to Lewis Chafer who said, God sold the cattle! He recognized the name on the check, and it was one of the areas wealthiest cattle farmers. And of course...The check as for the exact amount of money they needed! (God always does that!) Needless to say the school didn't close, and many great pastors were students there, including Chuck Swindoll, David Jeremiah, and Andy Stanley. 

If these sound to crazy and wild to be true, I understand, but this is God and this is exactly how He works. It's the most amazing thing when He does something like this in someone's life. He leaves 0% room for doubt. Nobody could have done it but Him! He is faithful! Listen, He has worked this way in my life. Very rarely, but when He....well I'm still feeling the impact and I can't wait for Him to move like that again. I'm sure He's done something like this in your life too. May not be as extravagant, but a time when you knew it had to be God. Cherish that moment and hide it away in your treasure chest. Pull it out occasionally and reflect on the goodness of God. Timothy needed encouragement to get him through all the trials he was going through being a young pastor. Paul echoed the great things God had done in Timothy's life and the faith that he was raised under by his mother and grandmother. He wanted Timothy to reflect on his past faith success's and stir him up to move forward in his faith.  Paul encouraged him with this scripture,

"Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands." 2Timothy 1:6

What is the Gospel?

What exactly is the Gospel, and how can in transform others and have no impact on the rest? This is an important question. I suspect if you ask most people what the Gospel is, they would probably only be able to tell you that Jesus died for our sins and made a way for us to get to Heaven. Right? Neil Anderson estimates that only 15% of professing Christians understand the Gospel and are actually free in Christ, including pastors. That's a scary statistic, and not too long ago I was included in the number. The Bible is all about the Gospel, and it is the very foundation of our Christian faith. Paul says, "Nobody can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." The Gospel is, Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and risen again, fulfilling the age old prophecies. That's the "good news" but why is it good news and what does it mean?

I spent most of life in and out of church and never knew exactly what the Gospel meant. I had heard it preached many times, but it didn't mean anything to me. I believed God was real, I believed Heaven was probably real, but that's about it. For the longest time I never knew God was alive, more importantly that Jesus was alive. God was off in a faraway place, and Jesus had died for my sins, that's all I knew. Honestly, I didn't believe that He could take away all of my sins, and for the longest time I thought the only sins that were forgiven were those I committed before I became a Christian. Think about that. It wasn't too long into my Christian walk that I discovered I was a failure, and God had written me off because I still sinned. It made no sense, and I lived in defeat constantly going against the grain of my existence. 

What I am about to share is "The glory of God in the Gospel of Christ." There is so much glory contained in the Gospel, and it is only revealed to you by the work of God, specifically the Holy Spirit. Paul says in 2Corinthians 4:4-6, "God has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ." God has to do the work, give the revelation of the knowledge of the Gospel. The scriptures are only knowledge until the Holy Spirit shines the light in your heart to make the revelation true. The "knowing" that it's true. I've been around many people that I refer to as "walking bibles" who have so much "knowledge" of the scriptures, specifically these I will be mentioning, that still live in defeat. Why? It's because they've never had the Holy Spirit open their eyes to the truth of the scriptures. You can have all the academic knowledge in the world and still be clueless until the veil is removed from your eyes. "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing." (2Corinthians 4:13) "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." (2Corinthians 3:16)

I can't stress this enough. There is a "knowing" that the Gospel is true. I remember where I was when the Lord gave the revelation. I was sitting at the dining room table studying these scriptures when the light went off. I had a vision, I saw, and I knew that God, the Almighty God had just revealed Himself to me. I have never been the same. This is how people are transformed by the Gospel! The glory of the revelation is so great and powerful, that it's constantly before you and greater than anything you will ever experience. "And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another." (2Corinthians 3:18) This is the salvation "experience." It's the truth in the Gospel that sets us free, and the Holy Spirit reveals the truth. "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." (John 15:16-17) "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things I said to you." And know I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe." (John 14)

The scriptures without the Holy Spirit are like a car with no gas. You need the gas and the car to get where you are going. If you have never received the Holy Spirit there will be a prayer at the end of this blog. It's a simple as that. God didn't make finding Him difficult; He only requires a heart that wants to seek Him. Back to the Gospel. We should all know that Jesus died for our sins; He was the requirement, the ultimate sacrifice for all of mankind's sins. How many? All of them, past, present, and future. The last judgment for the Christian was on the cross! Jesus' victory over sin, remember He did not sin and therefore satisfied the requirement of the 10 commandments, made it possible for us to come into fellowship and have right standing with our Creator. The Father is Holy and cannot have fellowship with sin. In fact He cannot even look upon it. This explains why Jesus cried out to God on the cross, "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" At the moment in time, the Father had to pull away. This is what it means to be justified by the blood of the Lamb. We are forever justified. Rejoice and be glad, none of your sins will ever be brought before you ever again. This is amazing, and why we need Jesus Christ! Paul says, "One died for all and therefore all died." What does he mean by all died?

Whether you were ignorant to it or not, when you accepted Christ in your life, you identified with His death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus was crucified for our sins, and when He rose from the dead, He became victorious over sin's grip on all of humanity. He destroyed sin's power over our life. This is one reason the resurrection is so important to understand. When we accepted Christ, we died with Him. The old sinful nature, everything we were, died with Christ on the cross. "Or do you not know that as many of us that were baptized, were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer slaves of sin." (All scriptures from Romans 5&6, read it!) The old man is the "old" sinful nature. We spiritually died with Christ. "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, (remember baptized "in") he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold new things have come." (2Corinthians 5:17)

This is why we get baptized. We identify with His death, burial, and resurrection. I know this may seem hard to swallow but this is why the Holy Spirit is needed. He will put it all together for you, I promise! Most Christians, including me in the past, try to put to death sin. We can't seem to shake it. Why? It's because we are trying to do something that has already been done! The scriptures in Romans are not commandments to be obeyed; they are truths to be believed. Christ has already died, you being "in" Him, you also died to sin. Notice the use of the past tense in the Romans 6:1-11. "We who died to sin, all of us who have been baptized into Christ, have been baptized into His death. Our old self was crucified with Him. We have been buried with Him." This doesn't mean that we will never sin again. James says, "If you think you are without sin you are fooling yourself." I John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." What Jesus did is He took the power of sin, and made it void and null. All of our sins have been forgiven. This allows us to confess them and move along in our walk with God with a clear conscience. No more guilt, no more shame, "Having cancelled the record of charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross." (Colossians 2:14)

We are "new creations in Christ." Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me." Christ lives in us. Colossians 1:27 says, "The glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you the hope of glory." When Christ rose from the dead He was and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Alive and well, living in us. The Gospel is not only the forgiveness of sins, it is "Christ in us", which is the hope of glory. This is how and why we overwhelmingly conquer everything in life. This is the living hope, the anchor of our faith! His death is good only for the forgiveness of sins, but His life (resurrection) gives us eternal life, hope and power, right now. "I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness." (John 12:46) "He has delivered us from the kingdom of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of His dear Son." (Colossians 1:13) Listen here, Christ lives in us! Jesus is "in" the Father, and He is in us. "The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me." (John 14:10-11) Now, we see Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Him. Who is in you? Ding dong, Jesus is in You, which also means the Father is in you! It is my prayer and hope that you will study these scriptures for yourselves, and pray the prayer at the bottom of the blog. Allow God to remove the veil. This will become reality to you, and you will no longer have to try and make yourself understand. When this all comes together for you, you will echo the words of Jesus, in one of my favorite scriptures, John 14:20. "On that day you will realize that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you." You will "know" it, and you will never be the same! This is the Gospel!

Receiving the Holy Spirit is as easy as receiving Jesus as your Lord and savior. In fact some in the book of Acts received both at the same time. Notice however, they had to ask and it was given to them. Jesus simply says "If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give Him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will he give him a serpent? If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" (Luke 11:11-13)

Father, I ask that you search me and show me if there is any disobedience in my heart. Please show me if there is any person I have withheld any forgiveness from. I purpose to obey and forgive no matter what you reveal to me. (If anything comes to your mind repent, confess, and let go.) Father, in the name of Jesus, I come to you as your child. You said if I asked for the Holy Spirit You would give Him to me. With joy I now ask in faith; please baptize and fill me at this very moment with your Holy Spirit. I receive all you have for me including the gifts of the Spirit. Now enlighten your Word to me by the power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name I ask and pray, AMEN!

We ask in faith. Don't expect a lightning bolt from Heaven just yet. Trust and know that you have received, and look out! Experiences are different for all people. May God add His blessings to these words!