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.

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

The Cleaning Lady Healed

The other day I was visiting my father-in-law in the nursing home bringing him lunch. I usually visit him at least once a week, sometimes more. Each time I go visit I like to take him something to eat. He loves Long John Silver's fish and he usually just wants one piece. While we were in the cafeteria enjoying our fish, one of the cleaning ladies sat down at the table and spoke to us. She is always happy to see me and my family and she is one of the genuinely sweetest Christians I believe I've ever met. There are lots of problems in her life, but she is always singing, hugging and working. She has a brother who is mentally challenged and she's always telling me about what he's doing. So, needless to say, we love it when she takes time to visit.

She ended up telling me she had to go to the doctor the next day for tests to be run on her heart. She also told me she had a small irritating cyst on the underside of her eyelid. She had had it pierced once before some time ago, but it was back. We talked further and she was about to leave and I grabbed her hand, "Don't leave until we pray." She said, "OK! I need all the prayer I can get." I said, "We all do, but I'm going to lay hands on you and Jesus is going to work on your heart and your cyst." She said, "That sounds great!"

I took both of her hands in mine and thanked Father for His completed work in Christ for her healing, and grace for me and her. Then I commanded her heart to be strengthened and made whole right now and, like the fig tree Jesus cursed, I commanded that cyst to leave her body now and to bear no more fruit in it.

Suddenly she took a deep breath and opened her eyes wide, "I'm on fire inside!" LOL, this is a common sign of God's healing power working in her body. She felt a sudden tingle in her eyelid. She told me her heart was hot and I felt the heat coming from her entire body! It was amazing. She rolled her eyes around and couldn't find the cyst! It had decreased in size to just a small red mark on the underside of her eyelid in just a few minutes. Wow. Jesus is amazing!

I loved on her and she went away in tears of joy and singing (normal!). Next time I see her I've got to ask her about her heart tests and see how it goes. I'll post an update when I hear.

Jesus is like a healing machine. His grace and mercy are over all His works. He is ever faithful to heal the sick, not to receive glory like He is some kind of "glory hound", but rather, because He truly deeply and unashamedly loves us so. Praise Him and go lay hands on the next sick person you find. And don't you pray and ask Father to heal! No, no, no. You do it like Jesus did and speak to that mountain and that fig tree and tell that sickness what to do in the Name of Jesus! It must obey you! (John 14:12)

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!

"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!

Grace For Drug Test & Cancer

A couple of weeks ago, my sister (TammyC), my mom and I went to pray for a lady (Mary) whom we've known all our lives. She was rasied down the street from where I was raised. I actually went to school with her older sister and brother and most of my memories of her are her toddling around as the younger sister. She was also a good friend of my wife's, who went to school with her. Turns out after school she got herself into quite a bit of trouble with drugs. She recently had been released from jail and was out on probation from a drug-related charge. She lives with her mother, who now takes quite a bit of care due to increasing symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. By her words, she doesn't receive any help from her older siblings and she is basically the sole help provider to her mom. The reason for our visit is because, of late, she was told she had liver cancer and a possible brain tumor along with a recent failure of her drug test from her probation officer.

As I entered her house it reeked of cigarette smoke. Her mom answered the door and seemed mostly normal. She recognized my mom and my older sister immediately and asked if I was Greg. She said I'd gotten older and looked different with gray hair. Yeah, it happens... LOL. We sat down in the living room and Mary came from the kitchen, cigarette in hand. She was a mess. The years have been rough on her. She was still sweet as could be, but you could tell she was having a very hard time with life.

She began to tell us what was going on. We heard that she had had seizures lately, even falling off the lawn mower and lying on the ground for over an hour while the mower kept running. A neighbor found her. Since she recently failed her drug test at her probation officer visit, the liver cancer doctor was not sure if he could treat her. Of course, she maintained that she didn't know how she could've failed her drug test when she's not been taking anything illegal. We heard her stumble over this story several times and make a few self-incriminating boo-boos in the coversation that followed. She looked like she was on something. Of course, who could blame her? I felt nothing but compassion rising in me. During one of her stories, I just couldn't stand it anymore; I rose up and hugged her.

After the many stories, many tears shed, I started telling her that there are no easy fixes to all our problems as humans, but that Jesus wants the best for her and is here to help her. She confessed that without Jesus, she'd already be dead. She expressed faith that Jesus wants to help her, but she thought He might be teaching her something, or punishing her for her lifestyle. I assured her that was not so. That the Jesus of the Bible was not like that.

I asked her to come over on the couch beside me and let me and my sister lay hands on her. She did. We commanded liver cancer to die and prayed for her seizures to stop. I asked her if she felt anything. She replied, "Well, I'm getting hot over here on my side" (her liver side!) "but I didn't know what it was." I explained that is the power of God healing her. Also she confessed her headache immediately disappeared. She'd had a headache for days that wouldn't let up.

She revealed she was worried about passing her "piss test" (to use her words) on her visit the next day to her probation officer. If she failed this, she'd probably go to jail. I thought, 'That's terribly sad' and I didn't know what to say. Suddenly I felt Jesus speak in my heart, "Pray for her blood to be cleaned of drugs." I was shocked. Would He do that? Of course He would. I repented silently of my unbelief and my limitation of His mercy and grace toward Mary. I prayed this silently because it just didn't feel right to say it out loud.

After we left, my sister asked me if I noticed Mary was on something. I said I did. She also noticed the self-incriminating stumbling of her language and asked what we should do about her upcoming drug test. I told her what happened to me. She laughed and said she thought exactly the same thing!

Sunday (13-May-2012) I asked my mom about Mary. Turns out, she went to her drug test the next day and passed! Then she had another visit to her liver cancer doctor, and he said, "Well, looks like it is in remission. We can't find it anymore." Praise Him! Mary now wants us to come back and pray for her tumor again.

What is amazing to me about this is Jesus' grace toward Mary in passing her drug test. I want you to think about that for a while. You might say that was cheating. LOL! His mercy never ceases to amaze.

Healing On the Job

Yesterday (Thursday, 29-Mar-2012), I took my regular bi-weekly trip to Cumming, GA to the company that sells our products and does front-line technical support for them. It is normal on such a business trip to visit with the techs that answer the phones and take them out to lunch. During this visitation we mainly discuss technical issues with older products and up-coming issues we foresee for yet-to-be-released products.

Betty

There is a lady there, one of the lead techs, that I often visit and chat with whose name is Betty. She is such a delightful person to be around and she's one of those persons that I would put in my rather small category of real Christians. She grew up protestant but married a catholic husband and is now a faithful catholic. We usually end up talking about our family or Jesus somehow each time. She's been a great help to me and the other techs on many occasions. She's not afraid of hard work and can work most of the other techs (who are all men) under the table any given day.

Yesterday she told me about not participating in some physical activity because of her back problem. She'd had it for years and never really done anything about it. But lately it had gotten unbearable. She went to a doctor who didn't help her much, so she went to a chiropractor. He just immediately began popping her back without much evaluation. This wasn't helping so she went to a different chiropractor and insisted on an X-ray.

The X-ray revealed the padding in her L5 vertebra was flattened, and bone was basically rubbing bone. I don't know the technical name of this malady, but she said it was very painful or would cause her back to catch where she literally couldn't bend a certain way. Instead she'd have to settle back down, wait for it to pop back, and then she could move.

Of course, I was chomping at the bit the whole time. I could sense the excitement that was about to happen to her; Jesus was pushing me to lay hands on her... it had to be Him. So after waiting rather impatiently for her to finish her story, I said, "Well, let's just pray, can we?" She agreed. Yes!

I sat in the guest chair of her office and just asked for her hand. She gave me her hand and I prayed something like, "Thank You Jesus for your love for Betty. Thank You for the healing that you have provided for us all. Thank You for Your grace for me and her." Then I pointed to her back with my other hand and said, "Now, back, I command you to be healed, right now." It was quiet and calm. We waited. Seconds passed. Her head was still bowed, eyes closed.

Suddenly she inhaled dramatically, pulled her hand out of mine, and said, "Shew! I am burning hot all over!" She's usually cold anyway and has a little space heater under her desk and usually wears a light jacket, which she now immediately pulled off and began to fan her face. I started chuckling. "Don't laugh at me!" she said with a big grin. I said, "What's going on?" She said, "I don't know I just suddenly got hot all over and now my back is on fire!" I asked, "In the appropriate spot?" She said, "Yes!" and then started crying.

I love Jesus and the way He touches us.

I started laughing. It wasn't insult, I just can't help getting tickled when Jesus does this stuff. People are so not expecting anything to happen and when it does the facial expressions are priceless.

I asked her if it felt any better. She said, "It feels wonderful! Are you kidding. Wow. I don't think I'll go back to the doctor." I said, "Well, no worries. There is no test. Keep your appointment. If it is 100% healed, it's healed. If it isn't 100%, it isn't, and we'll just do this again."

Now, mind you, this was in her office at her workplace, and I was on a business trip. Gives meaning to "as you go":

Matthew 10
7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. 

Amazing, truly amazing. It never gets old.