Many people claim that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not for today. They claim that Jesus healed only while He was on earth and the healing witnessed through the ministry of the apostles simply isn’t happening today.
I beg to differ – from experience and in response to what I read in the Bible. Since coming back to the Lord in 1978 after 15 years of living a pagan lifestyle, I have seen amazing things happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. Healings and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit happen regularly – today!
Just as an example of how God can work through the life of an ordinary person, I’ll tell you the story of a girl I’ll call Sandy. (True story)
Sandy had fallen out of a truck when she was 16 and damaged her back badly. When I met her when she was 23, she was unable to participate in sports and the doctor had told her that he was probably going to have to fuse her spine when she got older. She was in constant pain.
One night I invited her to go with me to a meeting where a faith healer was going to be speaking. Despite the fact that Sandy was not a Christian, she agreed to go to see what would happen. When the opportunity came for prayer at the end of the meeting, there was no invitation for anyone suffering from back problems to go to the front for prayer. The focus was on shoulder problems and headaches that night.
On the way home from the meeting, Sandy expressed her disappointment.
“Well,” I said, “if God is God, then He should be able to heal you at home in your kitchen as well as at a meeting.” Without skipping a beat, I asked her if she would like me to pray for her when we got home! When she said yes, I began to think about how foolish God and I were going to look if He didn’t show up – because I sure wouldn’t be able to do anything for her!
When we arrived at her home, I arranged two chairs facing each other in the kitchen and invited her to sit down across from me and put her heels in my hands. When I saw that one leg was longer than the other, I asked her if she was aware of it. She said oh yes, but that the doctor had said he couldn’t do anything about it except to prescribe custom built shoes.
I then spoke to the situation, commanding Sandy’s entire skeletal system to come under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and for her hips to come into proper alignment according to how God had created her.
As I held her heels in my hands, nothing happened. However, I knew that at the name of Jesus, every knee must bow and so I spoke the words again, quietly commanding her back to come under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and be made whole.
I noticed that Sandy’s heels were at the same level. I hadn’t felt anything happen, but asked her if she had felt anything.
“Oh yes!” she exclaimed. “My thigh feels like it’s being pulled out!”
“Well, why don’t you stand up and see what’s going on,” I said.
She stood up, twisted all around and said, “It’s gone! The pain is gone! There’s no pulling in my back anymore!” Then she ran up a whole flight of steps and back down – absolutely jubilant. Amazed!
“Well,” I said, “if it were me, I’d be asking Jesus to come into my life because it looks to me as if He loves you so much that He has given you a gift of healing to show Himself real to you and to draw you into relationship with Him!” Then I asked her if she would like to invite Jesus into her life.
She said yes. We prayed together and that was the greatest miracle of all!