Saturday, July 14, 2012

A Mustard-Seed-Sized Faith

Got a call from a friend of mine, "I can't take it anymore. I can't live like this. I can't live with this kind of pain. Something has to give. Can you pray for me, man?" I asked, "What's hurting?" He answered, "I've had blood in my bowels for a long while now, and I've had a constant headache for weeks. I can't take this pain." I asked, "How about your back?" (I had prayed some time ago for chronic back pain he'd had for years and Jesus had completely healed him). "Oh, no, no, no, that's great. My back hasn't hurt since you laid hands on me. That's healed for sure. But I believe if you'll pray for me right now, I'll be healed of this as well. I gotta have something..." His voice had despair. "OK, let's pray..." I took a deep breath, thought about Jesus, and began to thank Him for the grace and mercy for me and my friend and His desire to heal him. Then I commanded bleeding to stop and pressure to go away in his head. I asked, "Feel anything?" "Nothing." So, I did it again. "How about now?" "No, nothing. Still hurts." So, I did it again. "Anything?" "Nope. Nothing at all. But I feel lighter in heart." BAM! I said, "That's it. That's His presence. He's healing you." "OK, thanks friend. I love you." "I love you too. Please let me know..."

The next morning I was making breakfast for me & my wife, and I got a call. It was him; he was crying. "I just wanted to call you this morning and thank you for last night. About 10 seconds after we hung up, the pain in my head began to disappear and in just a few minutes was totally gone. No pain this morning at all either." Awesome Jesus. "How about the other?" "Don't know yet."

Later that day, I got a text message: "The bleeding has stopped! Praise the Lord! I love you man! Thanks for praying for me!"

The normal mode of healing the sick is laying hands on them. But when someone has a mustard-seed-sized faith, like my friend showed in calling me and saying, "I believe if you'll pray..." then we should meet them at exactly that point. It is powerful. Jesus, when He saw the faith of friends, healed a man. He didn't waste any time; the faith was there already. Jesus didn't have to use His faith for the man; the friends had it. In another place, Paul noticed a man who had faith to be healed, so Paul commanded him to walk.

Faith must be there for a connection to God's Life to flow. All that is required is someone present have merely a mustard-seed-sized amount. You can see that amount easily if the sick person looks to you for healing, or if they ask for prayer, or even if they just moderately agree when you ask to pray... that's all it takes to plug into God's power. I've seen atheists get healed by merely agreeing to let me pray for them! This is how you can get not only atheists healed, but even wrong-faithed religions as well; like followers of Islam, Buddha, cults, Wican, etc... it doesn't matter. When a mustard-seed-sized amount of faith is present, this makes that person a "believer" right then. I'm not saying they've dedicated their lives to Jesus Christ, but at that point they have a very small amount of faith that it just might be possible for them to get healed.

And that is all it takes. We turn to God just the tiniest amount, and like the Prodigal son's father, God bounds down the road to us to meet us! He can't help it... He is predisposed to show us favor!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

"Show Me Your Moves!"


Bruce Lee
My daughter, Kayla, is currently dating a young man whose dad I knew as a kid. His dad, David, was a special forces man in the Vietnam War. As a young man, David had studied martial arts and became very good at it. He became so good, in fact, that the army utilized his skills and made him a trainer. After the war he continued to study different forms of martial arts. He opened up a school in my area when I was a kid and taught his skills there. He married late in life (his 40s) and had 3 children, the middle one's name, who is dating my daughter, is Solomon. I know, I know, isn't that cool? Dad: David, son: Solomon. That was on purpose. He is also a minister and even though David is in his 60s he could still probably whip 3 good size young and strong men if he had to.

Anyways, Solomon is also very well-trained in martial arts. In fact, in his age division, he's never been defeated in a bout. He's a very sweet and energetic young man and is pretty crazy about my daughter. Kayla told him my interest in martial arts. When I was a young man about Solomon's age, I had taken karate for about 4 years and had earned a brown belt in a particular style. But unlike Solomon, I had lost plenty of times. But I did manage one year to earn a Tennessee state championship. When Solomon heard that he kept aggravating me and begging me (just kidding with me) to "Show me your moves!" This was quite funny to me because that was 30 years ago!

David & his son Solomon
But the other night he was over to the house waiting on Kayla to finish getting ready. We were all going out to eat. Solomon had been training kids all day in martial arts, Kayla had been training kids all day in dance, my wife had kept our grandson all day, and I had worked about 13 hours... so everybody was wore out. But Solomon was in my living room stretching, flexing and shaking his legs. I asked, "What's a-matter?" He said, "Well, I've abused my legs from kicking so much in fights, that my hips hurt me sometimes and I can't sit for a long period. And the doctor says my knees are getting close to bone-on-bone. So they crack and pop and hurt most of the time." Interesting to have these kind of issues at 20 years old. But I suppose it is not uncommon for an athlete his age considering he started martial arts when he was 2 years old.

He finally came over on the couch and with a big grin on his face asked, "So, Mr. Kiser, when are you going to show me your moves?" I said, "How about right now?" His eyebrows raised, "Seriously?" I said, "You bet. Give me your hands." So, rather excited, he gave me his hands. I said, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command your hips and knees to be made whole right now!" I looked up, the grin was gone, and he had his head bowed. I asked, "Do you feel that?" He looked up and said, "Oh man! I'm on fire!" I asked, "In your hips and knees?" He said, "Oh yeah. It's like Icy Hot on the inside!"

I held his hands for about 3 or 4 minutes and then told him, "Go check it out and see if it feels better." He went to the center of the room and started stretching, moving, kicking, etc. He said, "Wow. I'm freaking out right now. I can't get my knees to pop. Everything feels great! I haven't felt this normal in years." I said, "Well, you asked me to show me my moves. So there you are." He busted out laughing. "Oh wow, Mr. Kiser, I really love your moves! It's just faith, right?" I said, "Right. Not just faith. But faith in a Person. Faith in the faithfulness and willingness of a Living Jesus to do these things for us."

Needless to say, Solomon was very happy and when Kayla came down from finishing up getting ready, he told her about my moves. LOL! Jesus is faithful to heal us. His moves are always for our healing. His moves always work through our moves. If we don't move, He can't move through us. So... MOVE!