Another journal entry ~~ April 12
So tonight at church, Joel asked people in need of healing to raise their hands and for the people surrounding them to lay hands and pray for them. Diana and I began praying over a woman behind us who immediately began shaking and praying loudly in tongues. I have no idea what she needed healing for. But as soon as we laid our hands on her, she was immediately filled with the Holy Spirit!! I could sense her great faith as we began to pray. I don’t even know if God healed her tonight, but it reminded me so much of what I’ve been reading in Acts. The Holy Spirit came upon everyone who believed the news about Jesus’ resurrection and they all began speaking in tongues and prophesying over one another. When their brothers needed prayer, they gathered together and laid hands on one another and received the new baptism. It was amazing. The disciples went around all of the surrounding areas after Jesus’ death and the Great Commission. I am literally here in Peru because of the work of the Holy Spirit in the disciples lives. They had so much of the Spirit that people would attempt to take their handkerchiefs or touch their shadow, and they would be healed.
I’ve realized that the disciples (and Jesus, of course!) are an amazing model for us for evangelism, healing, and listening to the Holy Spirit. The boldness of Paul, Peter, Stephen, and Barnabas has blown me away and helped me to step into more boldness in my prayer life and seeking more spiritual gifts. I’m fired up!!!! The church in Acts was wild and I know that since God’s character and Spirit are unchanging, we can be wild too!
So, Lord, what do You think? I never even knew that tongues and prophecy and signs and wonders and miracles were available to me until this year. Your word says to earnestly desire these gifts. But more importantly, I think the passage that deserves the most attention is the Love Passage.
Thank you for revealing this to me, and I’m sorry I overlooked and underestimated this scripture for so long!!!
1 Corinthians 13
The Way of Love
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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What are miracles without love? Who was Jesus without love?? What is the point of any of this, if I don’t have love?
A basic concept that I’ve overlooked for so long. Love is the gift we should most earnestly desire. Love is the foundation of our salvation, it’s who God is, He is literally LOVE. I could die for my faith, I could pray over a million people and see them healed, I could prophesy for a hundred years. I could read the Bible front to back over and over, get 5 seminary degrees and have all the knowledge I can possibly hold, but if I don’t have love, it’s just noise and color. It’s worthless. Knowledge puffs up – love builds up.
Lord, give me more LOVE!!! This is what I most earnestly desire from You! More love for You, for others, for eternity, for serving, for teaching, for sacrificing. Show me your love more and more each day. Your affection for me brings my affection for you and from there it overflows in an eternal fountain of Your goodness and love for Your people. It brings an entirely new meaning to life. It changes my focus and it simplifies my plans.
