Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Jesus Loves Cloggers


Recently, I drove my wife, two of my daughters, and a handful of young cloggers and a mommy to competition in Maggie Valley, NC. It was a Sunday. I was supposed to be teaching a class on creationism in a Sunday School class and my wife was to drive them there, but she was just getting over being very weak and sick the week before. I didn't want her to drive in her weakened state. It was a windy and cold day due to the winds from hurricane Sandy coming in on the east coast of the USA, but the drive was beautiful, especially from I-81 down I-40 East. Fall colors around here are amazing. Snow was actually expected in the higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains later that evening.

Along the way I learned one of the cloggers had injured her foot the week before. Doctors said it could've been a small hairline fracture. So her foot was very tender. Her mom brought some Olympic-style wrapping material for just such injuries. She intended on wrapping her sore foot just before going out on the floor to dance. I made a mental note of this.

We all found some seats together in The Stompin' Grounds balcony and the girls altered between watching dances and getting ready for theirs. While this injured little clogger (she's about 14 years old) is talking to her mom about her foot, I stepped up and asked if her foot was hurting her. She said it was. I asked her mom if she minded if I prayed for her foot. They're both Christians, so they both agreed. I took her hand in mine and thanked Father for His love for us through Jesus and commanded her foot to be healed. I asked her if she felt anything happening. She said, "Weird!" I said, "So you did feel something?" She looked at her mom and said, "Yes, I did, mom." I asked her to stand on it and try it out. She said, "Wow, it doesn't hurt!"

Here is their dance. I didn't get the very beginning because I'm a klutz:

After dancing on it she came up excitedly to her mom and said, "Mom, my foot really didn't hurt at all when I danced!"

After the clogging competition, we ate at a local BBQ place called "Butts On the Creek" (http://mountainshops.com/wnc/butts_creek.html). During dinner as the young ladies were talking of the competition and the dance, this young lady said, "Yeah, and I'd like to thank Mr. Kiser for praying for my foot. It didn't hurt at all when I danced today!"

Thus Jesus was glorified among all the little cloggers. I'm sure He smiled.

Friday, November 9, 2012

John G. Lake & Andrew Murray

John G. Lake
Reverend Andrew Murray, the head of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, whose books are throughout all Christendom and who is generally recognized as one of the saints of this age, was dying of an incurable throat disease. The physicians of Africa gave him no hope. He came to London, England, but received no hope from the medical men there. He went to Bagster's Bethsan Divine Healing Home and was perfectly healed.
He returned to South Africa and wrote a book on the subject of healing, and it was placed on sale by the church. After a little while, the ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church discussed it in conferences. They said, 'If we leave this book in circulation the people will read it. Then the next thing we know they will ask us to pray the prayer of faith for the sick, and we have not the faith to do it, and our jobs will be in danger.' So it was decided to withdraw the book from circulation.
Why not give the people the light of the scriptures? Let them know that Jesus is the healer still, that He empowers men today through the Holy Spirit, to heal the sick, just as He ever did.
-John G. Lake