WANT TO HEAR ABOUT SOME MIRACLES????
Let me summarize what has been going on the past couple of weeks.
Month eleven. India. Less than 20 days left. Here we go.
Three teams are staying together for the month and we have broken up into two groups. One is working at a home for children with special needs and the other (my group) is planting a church in a village. Out in the village a small group of us have been pouring into a very special woman. Her original name has two parts- the first is the name of a Hindu god and the second is the name of a spirit. We have renamed her Preemah Hallelujah (Preemah means love in her language). She is the victim of generations of inbreeding, some kind of neurological disorder or cognitive impairment and we suspect abuse as well.
The first time that I walked into her room the darkness in there was thicker than anything I have ever felt in my life and the teammates we brought with us the next day felt it from down the street. The first time I saw her she was lying on her side in a contorted position. The first time I looked into her eyes I saw a demon looking back at me. The first time I prayed for her (in Hebrew) she turned to stare at me with deep aggressive eyes, HISSED at me and reared her hand back to slap me. The last time I visited her she was sitting up in bed smiling and saying “amen”, “hallelujah” and “I love you.”
We started by trying to cast out the demon but nothing was happening,
then Chelsea felt the absence of love in this woman’s life
and we started speaking out love and the darkness fled.
We have only been in the village a little over a week and we have already seen incredible miracles! Many have been healed of back pain, leg pain, coughs, headaches, fevers, crooked backs, breathing problems and heart problems. At our first healing service we prayed over a little old woman who hobbled in on a cane and when we said “Amen” at the close of our prayer she threw her walking stick into a pile of trash and walked home. God is so good.
I am learning so much this month about the power and goodness and love of God. I have almost completed my goal to read through the whole Bible this year and I have been learning a ton but what I really want to share with you are two things I learned from a friend in the states this morning. I want to ask you two questions…
The first is this: What is repentance? It’s a word thrown around in the church a lot but what does it actually look like? Why do we find ourselves engaging in what we think is real repentance and then months or weeks or days or even hours later find ourselves back in the same pit? What is repentance? Is it feeling bad? Is it saying sorry? Does it involve a priest or money or tears or being on your knees? Is it passive or active? Aggressive or fluffy? Self-pity or determination? I’ve heard some good things about the book What is the Gospel and I plan to check it out when I get home, apparently it addresses all of this. My friend summarized some idea of the book into the following answer. Repentance involves waging war on your sin and refusing to live with it any longer. It is fighting with all of your heart, every moment, by the Spirit, to honor the Lord your God and no longer live as slaves to sin. That view of repentance has changed my life and I needed to share it with you.
Secondly I’m referring you to a four minute clip by John Piper answering this question: Can you love people if you don’t love God? P.s. I love discussion and I love comments soooo if you want to leave a little something at the bottom of this I would love to talk to you some more.
God is real. Miracles are real. Salvation is real. Repentance is real. Love is real.
What do you think about them?
What are you doing about it?
