Leonardo y su apetito

By Frances

Faith in Action

One of the most important things we need to

remember at all times is that God does want to heal us. Over and over again in his Word, he tells us about his healing power, and he wants us to appropriate it for today.

Matthew 12:10,13 is an important scripture because it talks about faith in action, which is one of the most important ways to bring about a healing. "And

behold, there was a man which had his hand withered ... Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other."

That was FAITH IN ACTION. Jesus gave him a specific task to do. He was probably sitting there with an undersized, deformed little hand and he could have said, "Jesus, I was born with a withered hand. Can't you see I can't stretch it out?" But he didn't. He did exactly what Jesus told him to do. As he completed his faith in action, that arm was totally made whole!

That same story is told in Mark 3:10-15 and Luke

6:6-10. Exactly the same story, but with the different perspectives of each of the three writers. God could have edited the Bible and taken out anything he wanted to take out, but he repeated it so you would believe those stories were actually true. You will note that there are some scriptures in this book that we have used over and over again so they will stick in your mind and you will remember them!

"When he had thus spoken, (he had just finished telling them that he was the light of the world) he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing" (John 9:6,7).

When did the miracle occur? Did the miracle occur when Jesus spit? Did the miracle occur when Jesus made the mud pie? Or did it occur when the man put his faith into action?

When did it occur? WHEN HE PUT HIS FAITH INTO ACTION. Jesus could have spit all over the place.

Jesus could have made mud pies from here to there, and he could have put them on the eyes of every person there, but I doubt that anybody would have been healed, until they obeyed the command, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam."

That would be a ridiculous command, because the

man was blind. How could he find his way down to the pool of Siloam? He had been there lots of times, but not without help. God can always do the

supernatural. He can take a blind man right through every street without getting him run over.

The blind man could have said, "It is a long way to Siloam. You can just touch me and I will be healed."

He could have said, "I don't know how to get there. I never heard of the place." Or he could have said, "I don't like the smell of the water down there. Smells like sulphur!" He could have used all kinds of

excuses, but when he obeyed the command, went down and washed the clay off his eyes, he was healed by the power of God, because he had put his faith into action.

We have told you stories all the way through this book about various people who were healed because they put their faith into action.

The story of Naaman as told in II Kings 5:1-15 is an exciting story of faith in action. The Bible says that Naaman was a great man and honorable, and a mighty man of valour, but he was a leper. The devil will attack anybody. He does not attack just a poor nobody all the time. He goes to the top rank and hits the general and the privates all the way down the line.

There was a little servant girl there whom God used in this great man's life. Most people would have

thought a little servant girl was at the bottom of the barrel, but she told Naaman how he could be healed.

The person who had the lowest position in the house was the one whom God instructed. As we have said over and over, God is no respecter of persons. He does not care who you are. He just cares whether or not you are available and willing to do what he tells you to do.

Naaman took along a lot of silver and gold because he was going to try and buy his healing, but you cannot buy a healing from God. God's healing is absolutely free. The price was paid 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross! I have a feeling that when Naaman got to the door, he thought Elisha would come out and bow down and say, "Hello, Mr.

Bigshot. I am so glad you are here today. I respect the fact that you are a great man and a big general, and you have a lot of money and a lot of chariots!" Elisha didn't even come out to greet him!

Elisha was not being impolite. I believe God was teaching a lesson to Naaman, because Elisha sent a messenger and told him to go wash in the Jordan seven times and that he would be made whole.

Naaman had a big decision to make here. The Jordan River was not nearly as nice as the river that

Naaman had in his own backyard.

What would you think if you had gone with your best outfit on, your very best clothes, the very best of

everything you had, and this prophet merely tells you to go down to that muddy river and jump in seven times. Not only one time, but SEVEN TIMES!

You might have reacted exactly as Naaman did! He was mad! But praise the Lord for the fact that

Naaman had some smart people working under him, and they went on to remind him that if Elisha had told him to do some great thing he would have done it. But Elisha had asked him to do something that was beneath his dignity!

A lot of people have the same problem, but Naaman listened to his friends and went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan with all of his good clothes on. Can you imagine the cleaning bill he had when he came out of that muddy river? But he was obedient. Hallelujah, Naaman dipped himself not one time, not two times, not three times, not four times, not five times, not six times, but seven times.

YES! There is that perfect number of God!

If Naaman had never done a thing, he would have died a leper, but because he was willing to be obedient, he was willing to humble himself and go down there and dip himself in the muddy water, he was healed by the power of God! He put FAITH INTO ACTION!

Faith is something you must put into action. It is not a stationary thing. There is no neutral in faith. You are either going up or you are going down. Your faith will never stay on the same level. You get into the

Word of God every day, and what happens to your faith? It begins to go "up, and up, and up!" You stay out of the Word of God and what happens to your faith? It begins to go "down, and down, and down!"

That is why you must put your faith into action. You must read your Bible! Did you know that Bible reading is an "act of action?" It takes stamina, and it takes discipline to get into the Word of God and read the Bible, so we need to keep our faith in action at all times. If you never went out and put your faith in action, and you never went out and put this teaching in action, do you know how much you would

accomplish? NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

What will happen when you do? EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING!

Under the Power

Some of our greatest healings have occurred while people have been slain by the Spirit of God! One in particular that really thrills our hearts occurred seven years ago.

A young lady had been brought to our meeting from an insane asylum. She had been heavily sedated, but her mother had faith to believe that if we laid hands on her she would be healed!

She knew nothing about the meeting. She was so drugged, her mind could not comprehend anything that was going on, but at the end of the service, the mother brought her forward, and we laid hands on

her. She fell under the power of God, and we never saw her again until seven years later.

She told her story like this: "I don't remember a single thing about the meeting. I don't even

remember being there. All I remember is waking up while lying on the floor and seeing Jesus with his hands outstretched to me. In that instant I was saved, and then I began to speak in tongues, something I knew nothing about! My mind was completely clear and I have had no problems since that time when I was slain by the Spirit of God, and a miracle

happened in my life!" Saved, baptized and healed all at one time! Glory!

After a meeting one night, a president of the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship was taking us to the motel when his wife said, "I got so involved in the service tonight I forgot to go up for healing for

myself."

Charles said, "What do you need Jesus to do?"

She said, "I have a spinal bifida caudal which has caused me to have pain all my life. As a matter of fact, my mother used to wrap me in a blanket and put me in the oven to try to alleviate the intense pain."

Charles said, "As soon as we get to the motel, we will lay hands on you."

And that's exactly what we did, right in the lobby of the motel! She fell under the power, and while she was there, her body moved around on the floor, and she said, "I feel like something is happening inside of me!"

When she got up off the floor, she said, "The pain is gone, it's ALL gone!" She said she had felt like

something was being added to her body and hooked up while she was on the floor! We have heard from her since then and she is still on a cloud because of how God healed her when she was under the power!

THERE IS POWER UNDER THE POWER!

Barren Women

I have that special "faith without a doubt" when someone is barren or incapable of producing a baby.

I love to minister in this area, and there are little

"Hunter babies" all around the world! I use two scriptures, Psalm 113:9, "He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children," and Exodus 23:26: "There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfill." Our files are full of wonderful miracles about barren couples who have conceived and brought forth healthy children even after years of infertility. Most of the time these couples are slain by the Holy Spirit, and this is when the healing takes place. Glory!

By Charles

Strokes

A man had been paralyzed down his right side for three years; his leg was as stiff as a board and he could not bend his knee at all; his right arm was totally incapable of moving and had been drawn up against his waist with the fist so tightly closed that his hand was white from lack of circulation.

As I started to minister to him, the Spirit of God descended on me so mightily that it was like a warm energy flowing through every cell of my head and shoulders, then God spoke three silent but distinct words into my brain: "SPIRIT OF DEATH!"

I didn't understand all that God meant, but I knew it was God, and I knew that if he said it was a spirit, I was to cast the spirit out. I also knew that Jesus called spirits by what they did. Without taking time to

understand, I quickly bound Satan by the power of the Holy Spirit, and commanded the "spirit of death"

to come out in the name of Jesus!

Then the "word of wisdom" began to operate, but I didn't realize until later that God was speaking to me by this supernatural gift of the Spirit to show me how to heal stroke victims. I began to minister in a way that was similar to therapy. First I said, "Say, 'Jesus I love you!'"

He repeated my words, but not clearly. His wife was excited about that because previously he could not speak!

Then I took his immobile arm and began to bend it back and forth at the elbow. It was very stiff at first, but began to limber each time I bent it. It was not frozen in place. Soon it was free, and he could move it, slightly at first, but finally nearly normally.

I did the same thing with his leg. Then I began opening his fist and bending his fingers back and forth. Within about five minutes, he was able to lift his arm and walk bending his leg without any help.

Within four days he had almost completely recovered.

At another meeting, we discovered the left side of a woman's face was dead from a stroke. The spirit of death was commanded to come out, and I had her pat her face with her hand for about five minutes.

The feeling totally came back into her face.

I could name scores who have been healed in similar ways, and yet some seem not to improve. I personally believe that the environment into which they return has a lot to do with their improvement. If the family or friends express no faith and give no encourage-ment or aid, they regress if healing has started. If they are with someone who has strong faith and encourages and works with them, I believe

tremendous results will occur.

You can heal stroke victims the same way I do! Be patient and loving with them as you minister, but do not sympathize, because sympathy is one of the biggest killers in stroke cases!

I asked a Spirit-filled medical doctor what happens when a person has a stroke. He said usually they have a blood clot in a vessel, or a rupture of the vessel, which keeps the oxygen and food supply from going into a portion of the brain. As a result, the brain cells become dormant or die. Therapy will sometimes bring a dormant cell back to activity.

What I believe now is that when a "spirit of death" is cast out, the spirit which brought about the clot leaves and the flow of blood to the cells restores activity. All you have to do is apply faith and therapy to re-educate the communication between the brain and the paralyzed portion of the body. By bending the arm, leg, and fingers, as well as using the tongue in speaking, the brain begins sending signals and the limbs respond.

There is really nothing wrong with the arm or leg, but since the brain cell cannot send signals, the arm or leg quits functioning. If you are a doctor or nurse and this isn't described quite right technically, you can still get the idea.

Be careful as you bend a limb, because if the people

are not healed you could hurt them. Stroke victims often cry when you talk with them. When you bend a limb, it may hurt, or they may act like it hurts. This requires extreme sensitivity to the Holy Spirit! I generally tell stroke victims that I am going to cast a spirit of pain out and that it will not hurt the next time I bend it. Sometimes I simply rebuke the pain if I feel it is not a spirit. Almost always the pain leaves them.

Hay Fever & Sinus

God healed me of hay fever in 1970, after more than thirty-five years of suffering. This he did

supernaturally, but from time to time I had a

problem with sinus. Somewhere during the year of 1977, it became so severe I had to take three pills a day plus a shot about every three or four weeks to kill the infection. Finally, after about a year of this with both of us praying night and day for healing I said, "God, please show me how to get rid of this!"

Shortly after this we were in the home of a medical doctor in Florida eating lunch, when the doctor's wife said, "I'm sorry I don't have any coffee or tea to give you, but we all had such severe sinus problems, we all quit drinking coffee and tea and started

drinking a lot of juices, and sinus left the entire family within three or four weeks."

I said, "Thank you, Jesus!"

I quit drinking coffee and tea and started drinking all the orange and apple juice my system would take, and within a few weeks the sinus problem was healed!

A singer friend of ours went to a doctor for a prescription for a sinus infection. The doctor gave him a slip and when he looked at what the doctor wrote, he said, "But doctor, I want something to dry this stuff up!" The doctor had prescribed fourteen glasses of water daily! He took the prescription and it worked!

All healing comes from God whether it's under the heading of preventive medicine or common sense!

The healings in this particular area seem to be related to possibly plain old common sense!

Mass Healings

Backs, necks and knees are three areas of the body with which a lot of people have problems. When we feel the Spirit leading us to minister in groups, we call everyone forward who has a problem in whatever area the Spirit has revealed to us will be healed at that time. We line them up shoulder to shoulder and then give a word of explanation as to what is going to happen.

We use the principle of laying hands on the sick, and faith in action. We tell them we are going to lay

hands on their necks (or knees) and as soon as we do,