Over the last two weeks, I had the privilege to get a glimpse of the craziness that Jesus must have endured as he walked through the cities and countryside of Israel. The bible talks about crowds pushing in all around Him, people climbing trees, others yelling to get his attention, crawling through the crowds just to touch his robe, homes being so filled with people that no one can get in and others had to go through the roof to get to Him. In India we have had hundreds come to us for healing, not crazy crowds, but at times there were lines waiting to get to one of the five of us. We had people press in around us, wait for us to show up, run after us, wave us over and even had us hop on the back of their mopeds to be taken to a family member that needed prayer.
As many people pressed into us we used the principal from Matthew 8:14-17. Jesus healed many with a simple command and the laying on of hands. Honestly we did not have time for long drawn out prayers there was to many people. We don’t have to make great long powerful sounding, pleading prayers to Jesus, quoting scripture to see healing. The name of Jesus has great power, we would command the pain to leave in Jesus name. Some healings took one prayer while others took three of four times. In Matthew 10 we have been given the authority to heal the sick, we do not have to ask Jesus for Him to heal those we pray for. We are given power from God to show that what we preach and have in Jesus is real.
Seeing many healed each day is not as glamorous as you would think. Many days we would return from praying and be physically and spiritually drained as we poured out to others. We even spent each morning and night seeking after God and praying for Him to fill us. I have a better understanding of why Jesus left the disciples to go and be with the father. At times we were even emotionally drained and we were frustrated and even tired of praying for people. How crazy is that, we did not want to go out and see people healed because we had been drained of compassion.
Others would demand healing, get mad when healing did not happen or ask how many “sessions” it would take to be healed. some demanded us to come back to their place the next day. While others wanted us to write down the formula we used so that they could do the same. But the thing is Jesus is not a formula He is just love. Many followed the path of the nine lepers, they would be healed and just walk away without thanking Jesus or us. This added with the heat, smells, a much different culture and overpopulation could leave us angry and without compassion for God’s children as we just threw out the same prayer. I have learned the importance of having compassion for God’s children. I need Jesus who is love and power to reside in me that I may bring God’s kingdom to his children.
So you may have seen some of the video of all the great things that were happening with my team. Yes there was great things happening and I loved a lot of people and prayed for a lot of people seeing hundreds healed. But I wanted to let you into more of what was going on behind the glamour of the videos. It is not all love and Jesus showing up, it is tough and challenging at times to walk the path that Jesus walked. But I can tell you I am so blessed to be apart of the outpouring of God’s power like I have never seen before. I was privileged to learn from this and take it with me were ever I go.
