Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Matthew 10:8
John Fergusson was the guest speaker at a recent Equipping Day held at Life Church, Penrose, and hosted by Rodney Francis, of Gospel Faith Messenger, a New Zealand-based ministry of teaching and encouragement with a world-wide impact.
About 70 gathered for the day to seek the Lord for healing, and discover how healing and the prophetic are closely allied.
It wasn’t long before the Lord began to heal the sick. Some were healed from bad backs and other pains, while one older man testified that when a young teenager prayed for him, his tinitis completely disappeared!
Helle van Lune wrote afterwards: “Just a short note to let you know how much we enjoyed your teaching last Saturday in fact my husband reckons he had never heard such great teaching. We had to leave straight after lunch so did not stay for testimonies but my knees were healed. I did not really ask God for healing because I thought it was self inflicted by me taking up running, but he healed it any way, praise the Lord!’
As always, John had emphasized that healing and prophecy are not for the rare and chosen few, but are a command from the Lord for every Christian believer. Mark 16:17 says, ‘These signs will follow those who believe. They will... Place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. Do you believe? If so, it WILL happen! If we do what he told us to do, he will do what he promised to do!
John also explained that the Holy Spirit is a hovering Spirit. In Genesis 1:2 we read that the Spirit was hovering over the waters. The Spirit was present but nothing was happening. He was waiting for the Word. As soon as God spoke, the Spirit was released into action. So it is with healing - we must release God’s word over the sickness, and healing will quickly appear.
Paul Christensen was so stirred by the teaching that he took it back to his church the next day. 'You will be interested to know that my faith was strengthened by the Equipping Day, and I got the opportunity to pray for three people for healing this morning at church!’ he writes. ‘I am pleasantly surprised at how receptive the people in my church are to it. I think that John's teaching is really good and sound and is a good antidote for some of the crazy teaching that has put a lot of people off. But when people realise more that healing is part of the gospel, and healings start to happen in our church, then we will see a real positive difference.'
Yes, Lord!