Healing Touch part 1

Standing in our church auditorium during our Healing Service, a lady came and stood before my team members and me. As I asked this lady what she would like Jesus to do for her today, she responded by sobbing. Through her tears came the words “to feel clean.” My response was to ask her if I could hug her. I then held her in my arms for ages. Gradually, the deep sobbing eased, and the muffled tears stopped. I released her, and she looked at me with a face that was glowing. “Thank you for loving me kindly,” she said. “I have never been touched by anyone in a gentle, kind manner. Thank you.”

A gentle, appropriate touch, with permission, can result in healing – more than we can ever know or understand.

Jesus loved touching people – physically, spiritually, and emotionally. He was the master at both compassion and appropriate touch. We often read in the Gospels where Jesus reached out and appropriately touched people, and in the touch, people were healed.

In Mark 1:40-42, we read, ‘A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.’

From these verses, we read Jesus was indignant. The Aramaic word for indignant can mean both anger and compassion. Perhaps Jesus felt both angry and compassionate. We see here that Jesus felt deeply for this man. To minister like Jesus, we need to feel compassion for the people we meet.

It could be construed that Jesus was angry at being misunderstood, as His purpose was to bring healing and restoration.

From what we read and know of Jesus’ character, I believe Jesus was angry at the condition – leprosy – that made this man a social outcast. No one would have touched this man for a long time.

Imagine never knowing the touch of another human being because you were considered ‘unclean’. What impact would this have on your self-esteem and self-worth?

I believe Jesus was so angry at this dignity-stripping disease that His first action was to restore to the man the very thing the disease sought to steal from him – his worth. Jesus touched the man and restored the man’s dignity. Jesus broke societal barriers and rejection off this man. Jesus did far more than just saying “Be clean.”

It was a brave and courageous act for Jesus, as touching someone with leprosy brought shame and uncleanliness to you. Traditionally, Jesus then had to be excluded from being around people for a certain period. Jesus did not let that inhibit Him. Jesus came to destroy all those legalistic rules and lies that bound people. The superstitions around the diseases were lies, something the enemy specializes in, along with humiliation and exclusion. Jesus came to conquer this and bring freedom to all these areas.

I will never forget my first touch with leprosy. After carefully examining the sores on the child’s legs, the other nurse clinician and I glanced at each other. Our eyes communicated the unspoken disease – leprosy. That one word could still cause a feeling of dread in our minds because of the physical and social savageness and the isolation of the condition.

I internally struggled with my desire to withdraw all physical contact to lessen the likelihood of my contracting the disease. However, I deliberately kept my hands in contact with the child’s skin. I felt that showing compassion and love to the child far outweighed the emotional rejection this child may experience if I showed any fear of rejection and catching leprosy since touch transmits it.

The other nurse began explaining the condition to the child and her mother. Thankfully, there is now a treatment that means people with leprosy no longer need to be isolated after they have begun treatment. This child did not need emotional isolation along with this physical condition.

Notice how Mark writes ‘a man with leprosy’, not ‘the leper’. Your physical condition or sickness should never define who you are. To Jesus, here was a man, not a leper. Please be careful never to call or label people by their condition. I’ll expand more on ‘labels’ in a future blog.

Physical healing often follows the emotional healing. Jesus’ comment was, “Be clean.” Not “Be healed.” The man became healed by being declared clean (something that only a priest could announce). Physically, relationally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Until then, the priest was the ‘go-between’, taking man’s requests to God. Jesus came to bridge that gap so we did not need a ‘go-between’ but could go directly to God with our prayers. Jesus takes the priest’s place in this passage, foreshadowing what would occur after His resurrection.

Touch was important for Jesus. Jesus often healed people purely by touching them. A transaction occurs in the touching. Just as Jesus’ touch was powerful, so too can our touch.

A middle-aged man brought his teenage son to the Healing Rooms for prayer. After praying for the son, I asked this man if he wanted prayer for anything for himself. After a brief pause, he admitted he was the person who wanted prayer and that he had brought his son because he was too embarrassed to come for himself.

We prayed for this man and his various needs. His wife had left him, and he was lonely, scared, and depressed. He had some issues regarding his employment. We prayed for numerous physical conditions. After we prayed for the restoration of his eyesight, he could see more clearly and no longer needed his glasses.

But I still felt that this man needed something more.

My husband was praying for someone else, and I excused myself and went across to my husband. I tapped him on the shoulder and whispered that I needed him.

My husband appropriately finished with the person he was praying for and came across to me. I asked my husband to give this man a Father’s blessing.

Gary blessed this man, but the watershed moment was when my husband wrapped his arms around this man and hugged him like a father. The tears flowed from the man. This was a significant moment for him. The hug seemed to last for an eternity. This man experienced the Father in a new way.

As my husband stepped back, this man, with tears running down his face, expressed, “I am now ready to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.”

Never underestimate the significance and the power of a touch.

Questions to reflect on:

  • How compassionate am I towards others?
  • Am I carrying any shame or humiliation from the past that I need to bring before Jesus?
  • Are there any ‘labels’ that have been placed on me that need removing? How does Jesus see me?
  • When people ask for healing, is that always what they really want or need? How do I know?
  • What are my beliefs about touching someone when praying for healing for them?
  • How do I respond when asked to pray for someone with a ‘socially unacceptable’ issue?

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every blog post, I list five prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Ask God to show you as a family/group someone who needs comforting and cheering up. Ask God to show you how you can do this.

2. Group Activation: Ask God to show you a local societal issue with a root of hopelessness. Prophesy as a group over that issue. Ask God if there is something practical you can also do to help.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show you someone who needs a touch from God today. Step out in courage and approach the person, asking their permission to pray and prophesy over them.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight a local funeral director and how you can encourage and prophesy over them.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight a socially unacceptable disease and to show you how to prophesy into the answer.

Identity part 2

Seeing little children revel whilst they play, occasionally glancing towards their parents, warms my heart. These children are safe and secure in their identity. They freely play, unaware of any danger or insecurity. Subconsciously they realize they are part of a ‘bigger’ picture, they belong to others and their security comes from that. They are safe and secure to explore and ‘be’, play, and do because they are connected to their source of security and identity.

On a mission experience overseas, we witnessed time and time again a young, adopted boy wandering off from his parents and the safe compound we lived in. He seemed to have no fear and was often found being cuddled by strangers. Many folks incorrectly commented on how this boy was so secure in his identity. This was a concern for me as that is not security in identity. Instead, it showed a lack of attachment.

When we have children, we name them and give them an identity, both through their name and being in our family. As our children grow, they take on our family values and lifestyle. Our identity is not in isolation. It always comes from being in relationship.

In my last blog post, I challenged readers to look at the starting place of identity by looking at who God is. When we are in relationship with God, we obtain our identity from Him. Thus, we need to know who God is and revel in Him with awe and wonder to then understand who we are, how God made us, and our identity.

A great starting place is in the Bible. In Exodus 34:6-7, God explains who He is. He is compassionate, gracious, patient, loyal, faithful, love, just, forgiving. The Bible is full of who God is.

Once we realize who God is, we receive our inheritance and generational blessings of identity. It is through our identity that we become those attributes of who God is. We can then become compassionate, full of grace and patience, loyal, faithful, just, forgiving, full of love.

Our identity is in who God says we are.

An easy way to discover whom your God is, is to look at who or what determines who you are and what you are worth.

I encourage you this week to spend time with God, gazing in awe at Him and His Majesty. Search your Bible for how God describes Himself and revel in who He is.

Next week, I will further explore identity and who God says we are.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Gather craft supplies and cut-out cardboard human bodies. Ask everyone to receive from God a picture of who God says they are, then decorate their cardboard cut-outs accordingly.

2. Group Activation: Have blank pieces of paper with each group member’s name at the top. Fold over the name so it is not visible. Pass the sheets around so everyone has one piece of paper each. Ask group member’s to ask God for a statement/sentence of identity for the person whose name is on the paper. Once written on the paper, fold the paper again so the writing isn’t visible and pass the paper to the person on their left. Repeat several times. Then ask everyone to unfold the paper and read out the identity statements over the person at the top of the paper they are holding.

3. Beginner Activation: Gather writing and drawing supplies and sheets of paper. Spend time with God, reading His Word, documenting His character attributes, revelling in Him with awe and wonder. Then ask God to show you who He says you are. Listen, watch and sense as to who He says your identity is.

4. Intermediate Activation: Spend time revelling in God and His majesty with awe and wonder. Ask God to highlight someone to you who is struggling with their identity. Ask God to show you how He sees them. Communicate this appropriately to the person.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to show you a ruling family (whether constitutional or governmental) who are struggling with their identity. Spend time with God, seeking His heart for this family and its leaders and their true identity. Proclaim their true identity and ask God if He wants you to communicate this to them and how.

Identity part 1

People can become infatuated with being called a prophet.

I regularly get contacted by people who want to explore their prophetic identity or say they are a prophet. Just because you call yourself a prophet, or have that title, does not make you a prophet.

Being a prophet is not your identity. It is purely a function.

My response is to encourage them to explore their identity as a child of God first. Your identity is not in being a prophet. Prophetic identity is living out the essence of who God has called you to be. It is vital we don’t get caught up in wanting to be recognized as having a prophetic gifting, or even worse, as a prophet. This is similar for anyone who has a gifting and allows that gifting to become their identity, e.g. evangelist, Pastor, etc.

Unfortunately, our world looks at the exterior and titles and thinks it is fabulous. What you, or others, call you does not enamour God. He is enamoured with you and who He made you to be.

We don’t prophesy to become someone special or a so-called prophet. We prophesy from a place of knowing who we are and whose we are.

We prophesy out of our identity, not to build our identity.

People can easily become caught up in their gifting as their identity and see people through the lens of their gifting instead of purely loving them.

We need to get caught up in being a child of God. In living our lives for God and allowing everything to flow from that.

The Oxford Dictionary defines identity as “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.”.

Who you believe you are is so foundational. Similarly, who you are becoming.

Our identity answers the question, “Who has God created me to be?”. Our identity does not answer the question, “What am I to do?”. That is a destiny question that follows from identity, but our doing is not our being (identity). When we get our sense of identity from what we do, then the very essence of who we are, our core being, becomes vulnerable and unstable. When an unexpected event occurs with what we do e.g. lose our job, fail a course, our identity and self-worth can fracture.

This past fortnight has been a significant time in our family. One of our children was on a challenging promotional course for thirteen days. On the morning of graduation, they found out they had failed one small section, which meant they had not passed the course. After the graduation ceremony, this child’s identity shone through as they declared that even though they were disappointed, it wasn’t final; they would try again next time. This child realized they were no less a person because of that failure. This child showed resilience and security in who they were as a child of God with how they handled the disappointment.

So often, when we look at our identity, we start with ourselves. We examine what the Bible says about us eg Psalm 139:13-18 and how we were created.

Imagine, though, if we began with looking at God and taking our identity from God and how He sees us. When we start with God and look at our identity through God’s eyes, we have a solid base.

Over the next few weeks, I will unpack what it looks like having a solid identity in God.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Gather craft supplies eg stickers, glue, textas, and cardboard crowns. Ask each person to decorate a crown for themself, writing on the crown a word that God gives them that describes how He sees them. Orchestrate a special time of placing each person’s crown on their head, declaring over them the identity God has bestowed on them.

2. Group Activation: Spend time as a group hearing from God about your identity as a group. Craft a group identity statement.

3. Beginner Activation: Go to your food supply and ask God to highlight an item of food. Select that item of food and look at it carefully, asking Him to show you how that item of food relates to your identity. Spend time with God asking Him to reveal more about your identity.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you a local street/place that has a high rate of crime. Ask God to show you His heart for that street/place and what He would love your response to that street to be.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God asking Him to show you your nation’s physical and spiritual identity. Ask God to show you how He would love you to respond.

Growing your Faith part 2

In 1 Corinthians 12: 9, we read some people receive a gift of faith. This is different to the ‘saving’ faith each of us has when we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour. The gift of faith is extraordinary confidence in God’s promises, power and presence. It is a strong and unshakeable confidence in God, His Word and His promises. It is a fearless and zealous reliance on God and His ability to advance the Kingdom.

You can ask God for the gift of faith. Mark 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Other ways to grow your faith include:

1. Surround yourself with people of great faith

After we returned from three months in Mozambique at the Iris Harvest Mission School, many friends commented on how my faith had enlarged. They would often comment that they could see a massive difference in my faith level pre and post-trip.

It puzzled me. As I reflected on our (exhaustive) trip with two little kids, the growth in my faith didn’t register. Instead, I focused on the tough aspects, the challenging aspects, friendships made and the highlights.

Maybe I didn’t see that my faith had enlarged because it seemed ‘natural’ what I believed after being around people who also had a ‘big’ faith.

The words ‘we become who we surround ourselves with’ are true. Surround yourself with people of great faith, and it ‘rubs off on you’. When I spend time with godly men and women who love God, have seen God work mightily in their lives, often through trauma or difficult circumstances, I am inspired. As Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (NIV) or as it is written in The Passion Translation, “so one person sharpens the character of another”. When I am around those of great faith, I am inspired to believe bigger, to grow my view of God and what He is capable of, and to realize my true identity as His royal daughter and all that encompasses. I am also challenged with any faulty thinking or being judgemental. This calls me up into purer thinking, beliefs and actions.

Thus, in wanting to grow your faith, surround yourself with men and women of great faith. You may say, ‘but Jane, I don’t know anyone like that where I live’. Then find someone somewhere or start reading biographies of people with great faith.

When we returned from Mozambique, my husband encouraged me to buy the entire set of “YWAM Christian Heroes Then and Now” books for us as a family to read. These books contain nuggets of gold. Written about missionaries who had sacrificed a lot, they all had one thing in common – that of their incredible love for God and their great faith in God.

An excerpt taken from ‘George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans YWAM Christian Heroes Then & Now’ by Janet & Geoff Benge is: One morning, George Muller had 300 orphans in his care but no food or money for their breakfast. The children were all seated at the dining tables with a plate, mug, and cutlery in front of each child. George shared with the children that God would supply their breakfast, having no idea where it would come from. He prayed and thanked God for the food that God was going to give to them. George knew without a doubt that God would not fail the children. Instantly there was a knock on the door. A local baker entered carrying a huge tray of delicious smelling bread. He shared how God had woken him up at 2 am that morning to bake bread for them. Another knock followed, with the milkman entering, asking for help. His wagon wheel had broken right outside the door, and he needed to lighten the load, so he had ten full cans of milk to give to them.

Reading numerous accounts like this, where people trusted God and took God at His Word, enlarges your faith.

Surround yourself with people who believe that “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37) and live accordingly.

Folks, this is why testimonies are so crucial. Hearing testimonies grow your spirit. Revelations 12:11 “They triumphed over by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony”.

Testimonies release power.

Testimonies release hope.

Testimonies release faith.

Surround yourself with people who strengthen your view of God.

2. Inner healing

Regularly ask God to reveal any false beliefs or lies you believe about Him or yourself. It’s easy to incorporate faulty or incorrect thinking into your life. Have prayer ministry and address issues in your life.

Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We are required to keep renewing our mind to that of Christ’s.

2 Corinthians 10:5 “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Only keep those thoughts in your mind which God would keep in His mind and aligns with His Kingdom.

3. Obey immediately

The quicker you obey God and His promptings, the quicker you grow and become more Christ-like. The more God will trust you when He sees you are eager to grow and be faithful.

4. Minimise sin

When God highlights an area of sin or shortcoming to you, immediately deal with it. Don’t play with sin. Run fast from it. This applies to what you watch, read, and do.

5. Take risks

A significant part of growing your faith is trying, practising, and doing. If you will never step out and take risks in the supernatural, then you can’t expect to grow. If you see someone sick or injured, immediately ask God, “What do you want me to do?” or “Do you want me to pray for healing for them?” Then do it!! Do not expect to pray and see people raised from the dead if you have never prayed for a dead person before to come back to life. Take every opportunity.

6. Identity

Realizing your identity as a royal child and all that entails grows your faith. Know your identity – who you are in Christ. Know what the Bible says about you and who you are.

For your identity to be true and solid, you need to let go of any false beliefs. Receive prayer ministry/inner healing to align your heart and mind with God’s perspective of you. Healing inner wounds, especially from childhood or from your experiences, is a great place to start. No parent is perfect. No matter how great your parents are, there will be some wounding. I believe it helps to have some prayer ministry regularly (i.e. annually or every second year) just to make sure that no faulty thinking sticks and causes any issues. There are numerous types of inner prayer ministry available.

7. Authority

John 14:12 records Jesus saying, “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these”.  Once you have the revelation in your life of your true identity, you can then walk in the authority that Christ has given you. When you read the Bible and see what Jesus did and realise that Jesus said that we would do even greater things, you start to walk in that authority. The authority of seeing healings, miracles, living a pure lifestyle. This is the life you were created for and are called to be walking in every single day. As you experience this lifestyle, your faith will grow. As you experience God answering prayer and see miracles, your faith grows.

8. Worship God.

As you worship and meditate on God, His goodness, His greatness, His ability, His promises, His power, and His presence, your spirit grows. As your spirit grows, your faith grows.

As you worship God and give Him His worth, your view of God and His magnificence enlarges as well. Decree God’s goodness and greatness. Psalm 71:15-16 Psalm 89:15-17 (TPT).

As stated last week in part 1, take God at His Word. Get into the Bible. Read the Bible and know what His Word says. Then believe it.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how you are growing your faith in God.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Spend a few moments each asking God what He loves about them. Then share, draw or write it down.

2. Group Activation: Pair up and ask each other what area of their life they need a breakthrough in. Spend a few moments hearing from God, then ask everyone to prophesy over their partner.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God asking Him how you can specifically grow your faith.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight a Pastor in your area that is not from the church you attend. Spend time with God hearing His heart for this Pastor. Write an encouragement card to this Pastor, expressing God’s heart for Him/Her.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God asking Him to reveal His heart about the Covid vaccine. Prophesy and decree the future of the vaccine.

Growing my Faith part 1

“If I want to have a big faith in God, then I need to have a big God.”

I believe everyone can grow their faith in God. I also believe that if we expand our awareness and ‘bigness’ of God and realize His true character, nature, and ability, then our faith will automatically grow. The larger our view of God is, the greater the faith we have in God.

I believed God healed, but I also had not seen that in my life until I experienced a defining moment with my kids’ healing. I had desperately prayed for my mum to be healed of cancer, and she died. I had desperately prayed for a close friend and fellow youth minister, aged 27, to be healed of a brain aneurysm, and she died. I had desperately prayed for us to have children, and we had to wait over ten long years. Thus, I had incorporated a false belief that God healed but not what it came to the ‘big’ things.

Then, my children were healed of anaphylaxis and allergies – anaphylaxis to eggs, nuts, soy, cottonseed oil, intolerant to dairy, sulphurs, salicylates, and fructose, and coeliac. That dramatically changed one day in 2010 when they experienced healing through prayer. That was the day I realized I needed to change my beliefs about God and fully believe all the promises in the Bible and confess all my ‘false’ beliefs I had incorporated through my experience.

We find a definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Faith is not believing what we can see but what we can’t yet see.

Do you have a cultural value of believing that anything is possible with God, not just believing it but actively pursuing it? “God can and will do anything, and that anything is possible with God” needs to be a core value whenever we want to see the supernatural become our natural lifestyle. Where are you currently at in believing for the impossible? Believing with such certainty, a total belief that God can and will do anything.

It is having an unshakeable belief in God and the promises of God that we read about in the Bible.

Romans 10:17 “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

This is one reason it is vital to be consistently in the Word of God, reading and devouring His promises and learning more about God’s character, nature and abilities. The more we know about aspects of God, the greater our ‘picture’ of God and His capabilities.

If you need help in this area, I encourage you to choose a Bible verse from the list below and begin meditating on it. If you believe the Bible is the Word of God, then meditating on the Bible and verses from it will help align your mind to what God wants to do.

Bible verses:

  • Job 42:1- 2 “Then Job replied to the Lord, ‘I know that you can do all things, no purpose of yours can be thwarted.’”
  • Jeremiah 32:17 ‘Ah Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and your outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.’
  • Matthew 17:20 “Jesus replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”
  • Matthew 19:26 “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.’”
  • Mark 10:27 “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.’”
  • Mark 11:22-24 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
  • Luke 1:37 “For nothing is impossible with God.”
  • Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Turn these verses into a declaration that you can regularly declare eg “Thank you God that nothing is impossible for you. Thank you, God, that you say in your Word that whatever I ask for in prayer and believe that I have received, it will be mine. Father God, I now thank you for giving me (answer to my prayer) and believe that You will give it to me because nothing is impossible for you, Father God. Thank you, God.”

Hebrews 11:6 sheds light on the important of faith to God. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” God expects us to have faith, to seek Him and to grow in our faith.

Thus, if you want to grow your faith:

1. Ask God for more faith.

2. Get into the Bible and align your mind with the mind of Christ. Meditate on the promises of God and use them as weapons for declaring God’s truth into your situation.

3. Obey God’s Word.

4. Ask God to show you if you have any ‘false’ beliefs about Him. If He reveals any to you, confess them and ask God to show you the truth.

Next week I will share further ways of helping you to grow your faith in God.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Ask kids to ask God to show, tell or give them a sense of where God would be in a playground and also where they would be. Ask further questions such as why, what else is happening, what the weather’s like, anyone else around etc.

2. Group Activation: Get into pairs. Ask God to show you a book of the Bible that relates to your partner. Ask God further questions such as why that particular book, which verses in particular, is there a character that relates and why etc. Share this with your partner.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show you a picture/character of Himself that is not common to your view of God. Ask Him how this attribute relates to you. Spend time with God meditating on that attribute/character/picture of God and seek a new revelation from God about Himself.

4. Intermediate Activation: Choose a service provider eg mailman or garbage collector. Ask God to show you a present you could buy for this person. Write a note about how the present prophetically relates to that person and ask God to show you a way to give it to that person.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to reveal to you an issue with something in the community planning department of your local council/shire/area. Pray and prophesy into that issue. Ask God if He requires you to do anything further about that issue.

Visual Reminders for the Prophetic

This week I am teaching on the prophetic at our Church’s College. Whenever I teach, I love to vary my style as I realize that not everyone learns the same way. Home-schooling two children, now teenagers, one auditory and kinetic and the other visual, has helped me realize that my role as a teacher is to help people learn in the style which resonates with them.

Visual cues help reinforce our teaching point so much more effectively.

Thus, I have created some ‘party bags’ for each student to help solidify the purpose and aims of prophesying to others,

Each bag contains:

  • Heart-shaped sunglasses

Love is the basis for communicating God’s heart to others.

  • Key attached to a (photocopied) computer ESC key

The key to prophesy is found in 1 Corinthians 14:3, “But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort”. E.S.C. If it is not encouraging, comforting, or strengthening, then we shouldn’t communicate it.

  • Packet of extremely sour and sweet lollies

When we communicate God’s heart to others, we want to leave a ‘sweet’ taste in their mouth. We do not want a lingering sour taste.

  • Water pistol

When we prophesy, we are called to hit the target that God has placed on their life. We need to be specific and not vague when we communicate precisely that which God has shown us for that person.

  • Party bubbles

When we prophesy, we create an atmosphere of heaven for that person. Are we communicating with love, acceptance, joy?

  • Party poppers

God delights in every person. Communicating God’s amazing heart to each person and His delight in them is essential.

  • Gold coin

Each person is of intense value to God and how we communicate this to them helps them discover their true identity.

  • Australian tattoo

We are Australian. That is who we are. An Australian tattoo symbolises our identity. Part of prophesying is calling people into their full identity as sons and daughters of God.

  • Ring

Assisting people to realise their full authority as a child of the most High God is so vital. The ring symbolises that which the Father placed on the Prodigal Son’s finger, signifying full identity and authority as the Father’s child.

  • Wand / sceptre

Part of prophesying is identifying each person’s calling and destiny, encouraging them in their God-given authority and purpose.

  • Candle

As we prophesy, we release God’s heart for that person’s future. We desire to light a fire, or fan the flame brighter for their destiny.

  • Trophy

Each person has their race to run. The trophy symbolises enabling them to see, through our prophesying, the race they are called to run and finish.

There was one piece missing as I couldn’t find any in our local shops; that of a party favour parachute soldier. The prophetic, whether words, pictures, songs, can be like a soldier parachuting into enemy territory. It can get into places where we can’t naturally get to and change a person’s (especially a non-Christian’s) thoughts about themselves and God.

What are your thoughts?

What other items may you have included to help them remember what prophecy is about?

I would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment or let me know.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Buy a selection of party favours and ask each person present to select one. Then ask them to ask God to show or tell them why they selected that object and how it relates to them.

2. Group Activation: Get into pairs and ask God “If my partner was immortalised in a museum, what would the blurb say about them?” Then share with your partner.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God and ask Him what does He most love about you right at this instant? What is on His heart for you at the moment?

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God which missionary does He want you to encourage and either write, draw or give a prophetic gift to.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to put you in touch with either a member of the armed forces or a returned soldier and prophesy over their life.

What to do with a Prophetic Word – Part 2

Numerous times people have asked me if I want to listen to a prophetic word given to them by a famous prophet. It was usually from at least 5-10 years ago. These people then tell me it hasn’t come true yet, but they have this tremendous prophetic word over their life, and they are just waiting for it to occur, and they feel that now may be the time they see it fulfilled.

I usually ask them what they have done to enable it to become a reality. Most times, it is still on their phone, and it is something they have listened to longingly, but they have become frustrated as they don’t see the evidence in their life. They are still desperately hoping it will come true.

Just because you have a prophetic word, doesn’t mean that it will come true.

A prophetic word is conditional. Conditional on you!!

When we returned from Mozambique nine years ago, we realised that we needed to steward the prophetic words over our family’s lives. One of our children had prophetic words about healing people in the natural and the supernatural. We realised that we couldn’t expect our children to grow up and become adults and just start suddenly to pray for people and to expect them to be healed. We needed to put our children in a place where they could learn and practice and grow. So, we decided as a family to join the Healing Rooms team at our church.   Our children had eight years of faithfully turning up and praying for people and seeing people healed. They witnessed people being healed from cancer, deafness, poor eyesight, infertility, back pain, one leg shorter than the other, etc.

Part of stewarding your prophetic word is becoming the person required in identity and character and gifting so that your prophetic word ‘fits’.

Your prophetic word is a ‘working document’. It communicates that you are a ‘work in progress’. Prophetic words given to you are an encouragement of how you are seen in Heaven and a glimpse of your future. But they still depend on you becoming that person.

A prophetic word doesn’t tell you what the reality is for you right now. That is a ‘word of knowledge’ if the person doesn’t know you. If the person knows you and your situation or has googled you to find out information as occurs frequently, then it is just purely feeding your ego or encouraging you.

This blog post is the second in a series of blogs about “What do I do with my prophetic word?”. In this blog post, l address the first steps to take after receiving a prophetic word.

Habakkuk 2:1-3 says, “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time”.

1. “Look to God to see what He will say to you”.

Do the hard work by enjoying your relationship with God and spending time with God in the quiet place. Draw close to God. Prophetic words confirm an answer to me of what God is already showing me. Prophetic words are usually not just ‘out of the blue’ random words given to you. It is God showing you through yet another way or yet another person the answer to a question you have been asking or a solution you have been looking for. Your relationship with God must come first. I encourage you to seek God, not a prophetic word. God will come through and show you the answer or give you a prophetic word through someone but seek God, not a prophetic word. Your relationship with God will unlock God’s heart for you.

Please do not chase a prophetic word from a ‘prophet’. Please pursue God instead. Spend time with God, learning to hear, see and sense directly from Him.

2. Whenever you can, try and record your prophetic word.

If you have a digital device, use that. Otherwise, try to write down as much as you can as soon as possible after you have received it. Please write it down yourself and do the hard work. Do not automatically assume that the person who gave you the prophetic word will remember it all. I know from the times I have given prophetic words, I can remember the huge stuff, but I quickly forget what I have just said, especially if I am giving several prophetic words to different people one after the other. I also know from chatting with other prophetic people that they are the same. If you do not remember any of it and the person who prophesied over you doesn’t either and you didn’t record it, God is a good God. He will bring it to you another way and take comfort that your spirit will not forget it. Ask God to bring it back to you. Spend time soaking/ meditating on God. Ask Him to reveal it to you in your dreams.

You are responsible for recording it. The person prophesying over you also has a responsibility to make sure they are not speaking prophetic words over people with no accountability, so they will usually ask you if you can record it. Be wary of anyone who just speaks prophetic words over people and has no regard for accountability.

Listen to it over and over. The more we hear our prophecy and read it, the more it becomes part of us. Listen to the language and the manner they imparted it to you as that also forms part of the prophetic word. A prophetic word is what the Father’s heart is for you.

In my last blog post, I wrote about how I used a prophetic word over my daughter when she was critically ill in hospital as an 8-year-old. That prophetic word came to my mind because I had read and re-read that prophetic word. It had become part of me as I had intentionally read it and prayed over it every day for several months. I took that prophetic word with me in my handbag, and whenever I had a few minutes to spare, I would grab it out and read over it and pray it through. With your prophetic word, go through each sentence and pray it through. Thank God.

An example is if it said that “Jane, the Lord has given you a heart for healing. A heart for restoration and reconciliation.” I would then pray and declare, “Thank you, Father God, that You have given me a heart for healing, restoration and reconciliation. I decree and declare that I am a healer, that I bring healing from the Lord and will also bring restoration and reconciliation to people.”

3. “Write down the prophetic word”.

Transcribe your prophecy. You can then see it visually. I find it helpful to type it on my computer so I have a copy I can print off. I double-space it so I can work with it easily and make notations above and below words. Your prophetic word is a working document. When someone prophesies over you, that is just the beginning. You still have to do the work and get the most out of it to benefit from it. Read it and re-read it. Keep it with you, and whenever you have a few moments, get it out and read over it again. Let it soak into you and become part of you.

When our family received our first prophetic word nine years ago, we were in Mozambique. We had no idea what to do with it. So, I transcribed it and read it repeatedly. We prayed it through and turned it into a prayer. In effect, we memorised it. This helped us when we were confronted with our daughter’s illness, and the prophetic word came to the forefront of our mind. Thus, we were able to use it in the spiritual and emotional fight for her healing. Never underestimate the power and impact of your prophetic word.

4. “Make it plain on tablets.”

This is where you begin to work on it.

  • You need to test it. Does it ‘feel’ right and does it witness to your spirit?
  • All prophecy needs to be weighed against the nature of God. Does the prophecy bear witness to the nature of God & what God says in the Bible?
  • Do you go “yes” that is right or put it up on the shelf for a while or discard it? Many times, people have thought that a particular prophetic word was wrong and not for them. They shelved it and when they looked at it again several years later, they were shocked at how accurate it was. Just be careful not to discard it too quickly!!
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all, hold on to what is good.”
  • Remember the purpose of prophecy is to encourage, build-up and comfort us from God’s heart. 1 Corinthians 14:3 “But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort”.
  • A significant question to ask is, “Will responding to this prophecy bear good fruit in my life?”

5. “So that a herald may run with it.”

Is there any sense of timing in your prophetic word? Is it a ‘now’ word for today, or perhaps a word for several years? Read through your prophetic word again and look for any clues as to timing or what will be fulfilled, or who you will become identity wise before the prophetic word is fulfilled.

My next blog post will highlight various questions that are great to ask about your prophetic word as you begin to dissect your prophecy. In it, I will look at what your prophetic word says about your identity.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Draw and design a mask, maybe even using material. Ask God what He would like each person in your family to have on their mask.

2. Group Activation: Join with several people and craft a joint prophetic word for a local or national television station. Speak it out aloud. Ask God if He wants you to send it to the station.

3. Beginner Activation: Draw and design a cape for you to place around your shoulders. It could be using material or draw on paper. Ask God how He would like you to illustrate it and which words He would put on it describing you.

4. Intermediate Activation: Go for a walk and choose a neighbour’s house. Prophesy over the house and everyone who lives there and will live there in the future. You can speak it out aloud as you walk. You do not necessarily have to speak to the people concerned, unless God highlights that He would like you to. You could even write it in a card/letter and put it in their letterbox.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight someone influential in the media. Prophesy over them. Ask God if you are to personally contact them or to declare it out aloud into the atmosphere.

Dream Interpretation part 3

Over the last two weeks, I have blogged about the importance of dreams, preparing to dream and how to record your dream. The first week I covered dreams in the Bible and some amazing dreams that people have had and how these dreams have helped influence society with their inventions, scientific discoveries, movies, books etc.

Last week I blogged about how to prepare for a dream and then how to document the dream. It is one thing to have a dream, but if you can’t remember it and don’t take the time to document it and uncover what the dream means, then you lose the full impact of the dream.

Today I want to unpack how you interpret your dreams and how God uses metaphors so that you can have a fuller understanding of that which God is trying to reveal to you.

Remember Proverbs 25:2 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”

You may well find that most of your dreams are not literal. They are symbolic. God usually uses metaphors. A metaphor is a figure of speech where a word or a description is applied to an object eg God as a Father, God as a rock, God as a strong tower. They are all metaphors to describe God. When you understand the metaphor and look at what it is meaning or ‘similar’ to, it gives a greater depth and understanding to God, to the situation and to yourself.

The word ‘interpret’ in the Hebrew has two words which explain its meaning – pathar and pashar. Pathar relating to a mouth/opening and a cross (representing a symbol). Pashar relates to the understanding of a dream. Thus, when we interpret a dream, we are opening up the symbols of a dream and the understanding of a dream.

It is one thing to have a dream but if we don’t take the time to consider its meaning and interpret it, we are missing out on vital information from God.

There have been numerous times when my dreams have helped me understand what has happened in my life or have helped in various situations over the following days or months. Several times it has really helped me make important decisions as the wisdom gleaned from the dream was applicable to that which I was facing at the time.

As you record your dream, please take the time to also record how you felt when you first woke up. Even those times when the dream left you feeling confused or ‘yuck’, they can still be useful.

Are all dreams from God – no. The devil can also impact your dreams. Dreams reveal things about ourselves, God’s plans, the enemy’s plans for our lives, and they can also be a processing of past events or unresolved issues that we may well have ‘brushed’ over and felt that the event no longer impacts us. God, in His wisdom, knows far greater, and sometimes that may be the only way we will start to process the past hurt or situation.

Steps to Interpret your dream:

  1. Pray. As your read through what you have written down, pray about the various aspects. Pray for more revelation. Pray about how to apply what you learn to your life. Work with the Holy Spirit in the interpretation and application to your life. Genesis 40:8b says, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”
  2. Summarize the dream as if you were telling a story in 30 seconds maximum. Thus, tell just the highlights and the repetitive details. Write this down as it helps you determine the important parts.
  3. Give your dream a Title. This helps in the future when you are wanting to remember and apply the dream but it also sums up the dream in a few words and again, it helps you to determine the most important aspect of the dream.
  4. Are you an active participant in the dream or are you looking on as an outsider, like an observer? Sometimes the observer role indicates that it is a call to intercede.
  5. What is the main focus or the primary element?
  6. Look at the context / setting. Is it about you, your family, your career, relationships, ministry? What is the general theme or main focus?
  7. Who is in the dream? Most times, the people in your dream do not represent those people in your actual life. Most times, those people are symbolic. Look at the role or what that person means to you in your life – are they a close friend, a mentor, a daughter-like figure, a dad? Look at that relationship from a biblical or metaphorical perspective eg dad usually represents Heavenly Father. One night I had a dream about my High School Principle who was called Mr Cross. The dream was not about Mr Cross. Mr Cross in the dream represented Jesus who died on the cross. Is the person’s name a play on words? Does it represent a generation or age group or a type of person?
  8. Develop your own unique dream vocabulary. God speaks to us each as individuals. He doesn’t treat us all the same. Thus, your dream vocabulary will not be the same as mine. An example is that a black dog to you might represent your pet dog growing up who was black. As soon as I think of black dog I think of depression. Two vastly different meanings. That doesn’t mean that I can’t use helpful books (And one book I highly recommend is ‘The Divinity Code to Understanding your dreams and visions’ by Adam F. Thompson and Adrian Beale. (A huge plus is that these men are from Australia so have both American and Australian language in it.) I find that God often uses puns with me. Eg to let = toilet; Russian man – rushing around,
  9. Recognise that there is usually multiple interpretations and levels that can be gleaned. Remember, God is in the details. On the other hand, please don’t get stuck in the nitty gritty details and go off on a rabbit trail.
  10. List out the main 5-7 major points / symbols from the dream. Look at those that carry the most ‘weight’. Then start to unpack them. With metaphors, look at the hidden meaning or truth that each metaphor could represent.
  11. Vehicles in a dream usually represent ministry or influence. Thus, if on a bicycle, it is referring to a solo role or individual calling that doesn’t go far very quickly ie locally based; a car – small ministry. If you are driving, it may be your ministry. Where you sit is important eg back seat – taking a back seat etc; a bus – a larger ministry etc Likewise, buildings, houses and rooms within a house have meanings eg bedroom usually signifies intimacy; kitchen – spiritual preparation
  12. Ask Holy Spirit to confirm within you the meaning or seek advice.
  13. Apply the outcome, if possible.

Dream interpretation is really an invitation to draw closer to God. Using discernment is so important.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Prepare some different flavours for the family to taste eg sweet, sour, spicy, bland, bitter. Even add in some various textures. Place on the table. Ask each person to taste the different food, all tasting the same dish/food at the same time. Spend some time each sharing what aspect of God, themself or some else it reminds them of and why.

2. Group Activation: Ask group members to pair up. Ask them to hear/see/sense from God an image of a ‘sign’ from God for their partner. Prophesy over each other what God said.

3. Beginner Activation: Pick up an item of stationary. Ask God to reveal to you something about Himself for you through that item.

4. Intermediate Activation: Deliberately go past a street sign today. Spend a few moments taking note of the street sign and asking God to speak to you about the application of the street sign and something in your life or someone else’s life. Turn it into a prophecy and declare it out aloud.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight a high profile celebrity to you and begin to spend time each day seeking God’s heart for this person. Prophesy out aloud into the atmosphere what God shares with you, especially about this person’s character and heart. Start interceding for this person.

Excerpt from my new book!!

Friends, I am so excited. My new book is about to be released and today’s blog post includes a chapter. It is a  30 Day Devotional from Mark’s Gospel entitled:

Ministering like Jesus

How to Grow in Healing, Deliverance and Miracles


DAY 15: MARK 5:22-34 

Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”


Jesus loves people. He loves healing people and bringing transformation to them. He loves addressing the real issue.

In today’s reading, we see two stories interwoven – two people from the extremes of society. The end of the first story about the synagogue leader and his daughter carries over into tomorrow’s devotion.

A synagogue leader well placed in society has a 12-year-old daughter (verse 42). He asks Jesus to come to heal his daughter, and Jesus immediately goes with him, no questions asked. We can only presume that doctors could not do anything to treat her.

We then see a woman with bleeding issues, who has been ostracized from society for twelve years. She is considered unclean and cannot touch anyone. No doctors could heal her either. She suffered physically and emotionally, and financially as she was now penniless from seeking healing.

The number twelve was significant for both people. Twelve represented faith, perfection, authority, power, completion.

Both this woman and Jairus exhibited faith in Jesus before they felt or saw the healing. They both fully knew and believed that Jesus was the answer. They did not question Jesus’ ability to heal them.

This woman comes up behind Jesus where He cannot see her and touches Him, making Him ‘unclean’ by doing this. She does not want attention. She wants to remain ‘invisible’. Maybe that was why she did not face Him and ask Him to heal her. Instead, choosing to extend her arm to touch His garment discretely. It seems like she was hoping He would not notice. Due to her bleeding condition, which made her an outcast, she was ‘invisible’ to society, and this was no different. She did not want anyone, even Jesus, to ‘notice’ her. Maybe she thought that she was not good enough, rich enough, significant enough, influential enough.

Nursing a critically ill lady in Coronary Care, we were on the brink of an emergency. Alarms were loudly beeping, her blood pressure plummeting, her heart rate severely dropping, and this lady knew she was in grave danger. The doctors were just outside the door, discussing her condition and how soon we could transfer her to another hospital. She needed more intensive care and access to new treatment methods before receiving a heart-lung transplant.

I had been sharing with this lady about Jesus. This lady recognized that Jesus could heal and was good at healing. But she did not believe that Jesus would heal her. She thought that she was not good enough; that she had not led a life worthy of being healed.

There was no time left. I frantically uttered, “Heart be healed in Jesus’ name.” That was it. She was deteriorating so rapidly I did not have time for anything else as I was juggling medication infusion lines.

The alarms frantically changed their sounds, and as I looked at all her heart and lung measurements from all the tubing we had in place, I realized things had stabilized.

The Doctors flung the door open and hurried in, expressing disbelief at all the measurements on the monitor.

“What’s happened?” they asked. “What did you do?”

What could I say? ‘I prayed for this lady, and God healed her.’

The Doctors preceded to take all the measurements to double-check. Yes. The monitor readings were accurate. The recordings were so good that this lady was able to be taken off the heart-lung transplant list as she no longer needed a new heart. Still on the lung transplant list (until her next admission when she was prayed for again and was totally healed.)

I was speechless. God could heal in an emergency like this. God could also heal people when they did not believe they were worthy enough. It is not about their relationship with God. It is all about God and the goodness and kindness of God.

The woman in the passage today knew the imbalance of societal value and feeling worthless. Here was Jesus, a powerful man, on the way to another powerful man’s house. Not only was she a woman, and a woman of a lower societal standing, but an outcast due to her bleeding.

Yet she persisted.

After everything she had overcome, she finally reached Jesus.

Immediately this woman knew in her body that she was healed. Instantaneously. Jesus also felt the difference as the power left Him. How often do we ‘feel’ the Holy Spirit as He connects with whom we are praying?

What I find extremely interesting is that Jesus could have just kept going about His business. People were crowding Him, jostling Him, pushing Him. But He still stopped and acknowledged this woman. He wanted to meet her face to face, to talk with her. To re-establish her standing in society by pronouncing her healed, thus cleansed, and blessing her with peace as she left.

This woman ends up telling Jesus the ‘whole truth’. Do we tell Jesus everything? The whole truth?

Jesus finishes the interaction by calling her ‘daughter’, a title that indicates intimacy, acceptance and position. All the things she was missing in society due to her illness.

Do we take that extra time to ‘finish’ what Jesus is doing? With this lady, the healing and transformation were miraculous, but it was the restoring her place in society that was the ‘icing on the cake’, the completion. Jesus was letting her know, face to face, that she was now completely healed in all areas.

Reflection:

  • How desperate am I for my healing? To what lengths will I go to receive my healing?
  • Do I tell Jesus the whole truth about myself, how I am feeling, my doubts?
  • What is my understanding and experience of the goodness and kindness of God?
  • Do I allow people to meet face to face with Jesus for themselves?
  • Do I take the time to see what else Jesus wants to restore in a person’s life after they have received healing? Do I take that extra time to allow Jesus to ‘finish’ what He is doing?

Prayer:

Jesus, thank you for Your stunning example of how You treat people. How You are always willing and available to take the extra time with people, despite the apparent pressures around you.

Help me Lord to follow Your example.

Lord, may I be an accurate representation of Your kindness, goodness and love to others. I decree today that I will make time to show kindness to others.

Help me to have the faith of this lady and Jairus and fully believe that You are the answer to all my needs.

Lord, I commit to sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings with You. I desire to hold nothing back from You. To linger in Your presence and remain close. To spend time with You, no matter what. Lord, I declare that I will make us a priority today.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The key for me today is:

 


Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Put some favourite music on quietly and spend time as a family asking God to show or tell you what He thinks of you each. Then ask God who He would like you to encourage this week. Ask God how you could best encourage that person.

2. Group Activation: Compile a list of your group member’s birthdays. Allocate a different month, or a week, to different people within your group. Ask the group members to find a creative way of expressing how God views each person within their group. You may need to ask permission first to share contact details or arrange a zoom call for the group where members could share what they received from God for each person.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God writing down everything you love about God. Then spend time listening to Him and writing down everything He loves about you.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you a creative way of expressing God’s love for the workers at your local supermarket. Then do it.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time hearing from God about the organization and people in W.H.O. (World Health Organization) & the United Nations Secretariat. Hear God’s heart and His purpose for these people and ask God what He would like you to do in response to what He has shared with you.

When the same person keeps asking for a Prophetic Word

Like clockwork, every few months, the same person would approach me for a prophetic word. They would start by explaining how they were wanting a prophetic word from me so that they had something to hang on to in their time of struggle.

Immediately this raises a red flag with me.

Firstly, they need God to hang on to in this time. God needs to be their source of comfort, inspiration, and wisdom during their time of struggle (in fact all the time) rather than me hearing from God for them.

Secondly, they have had numerous prophetic words in the past. Prophetic words are especially for such a time as this. Just because they are going through a new season of struggle, doesn’t mean that their ‘old’ prophetic word is no longer viable. Prophetic words can be for the ‘here and now’ but they usually seem to be for a few steps time. Prophetic words are meant to be ‘encouraging, comforting and strengthening’ (1 Corinthians 14:3). Thus, they are great to get out in times of hardship and work through and see what God wants to be for you during this time.

Prophetic words usually address identity and destiny. Who you are and who God wants to be for you during this time are what identity words are all about.

Hubby also has had similar situations where a certain single lady would, on a regular monthly occasion, ask him for a prophetic word. He addresses this issue by saying that he won’t give a person another prophetic word, when they keep asking, until they have worked through their last prophetic word.

Usually when people are asking for a new prophetic word and they have been given numerous prophetic words in the last year or so, it becomes a discipleship issue. The person need to be taught that they need to go to God Himself. To put in the time and relationship with Father God, Holy Spirit and Jesus.

Please never become a substitute for a person seeking God for themselves. Jesus was, and is, the only ‘go-between’ in our relationship with God.

If a person is having trouble hearing from God for themselves, you will have a far greater impact if you help them to hear or receive from God for themselves.

Start with helping them look at how much time they are setting aside to spend with God. Do they prioritise Him each day? Are they reading the Bible? Are they looking to God for their answers?

Then, you may help them to have an encounter with God or give them tools to spice up their relationship with God.

Some of these tools may be to:

  1. Try spending time with God in a different setting eg in nature, at the beach, outside, in a different chair, etc.
  2. Try setting aside a different time of the day to specifically focus on God.
  3. Try reading the Bible a different way eg using an audio version or a new app or a different version or a DVD version. The IF:Gathering app has numerous amazing four week Bible study series on it which I have found extremely helpful.
  4. Try writing out verses from the Bible each day.
  5. Ask God to show you pictures or images of yourself or your day.
  6. Put worship music on and rest with worship filling your head.
  7. Find new ways of being in awe of God and thanking Him.We are not in the business of making people reliant on us. We are not their Saviour. We need to be pointing them to God Himself.

We are not in the business of making people reliant on us. We are not their Saviour. We need to be pointing them to God Himself.

 

Leading people through an encounter with God is effective for the here and now but it also gives them a tool for when they are stuck again.

Leading people into an encounter with God can be very simple.

  1. Ask the person to get into a comfortable position and close their eyes to help minimise any distractions.
  2. Ask the person to imagine that they are in a favourite place for them. Ask them to share with you what it looks like, smells like, feels like.
  3. Ask them to then imagine Jesus coming into that scene. Imagine that they see Jesus walking up to them and sitting, standing, just being next to them or in front of them. What is He doing? What does He say?
  4. Imagine that He has a present He wants to give to them. What does that present look like? What shape is it? How is it wrapped and what colour is the wrapping?
  5. Unwrap the present. What is it? What does that mean to them?
  6. How do they want to respond to Jesus?

Variety is the spice of life. Just how you sometimes need to vary stuff in your relationship with your partner or children or friends, it is also helpful to vary things in your relationship with God.

I would love to hear of different methods you have used when someone keeps coming to you for a prophetic word and how you have helped them refocus back on to their relationship with God.

 

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Lead children into an encounter like the one above, imagining that Jesus has a present for them. Ask them questions to find out what the special present Jesus has for each one of them.

2. Group Activation: Buy an assortment of small chocolate bars that have different names eg Cadbury favourites. Place them in a bag deep enough so that you can’t see what you are selecting. Have each person put their hand in the bag and bring out a chocolate. The person then asks God for a prophetic word about the name of the chocolate bar for a person in the group. Hand the chocolate bar to the person as you share the prophetic word with them. If it is a large group, perhaps split into several smaller group, each group having their own chocolate assortment in a bag.

3. Beginner Activation: Open your calendar/diary before God. Ask Him to show or tell you something significant that you need to realise and what you need to do in response.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight a family to you. Spend time with God hearing or seeing what is on His heart for this family as a group and for the members individually. Draw or write the encouraging response and then ask God how you are meant to communicate it to this family.

5. Advanced Activation: Dream with God for one thing to change in the world this year and what the change could look like. Ask God to highlight to you your part in bringing about that change. Then ask God to show, tell or give you a strategy for your part.